The 1867 Emilie Steinbach House - 106 East 10th Street

 

photograph by the author

In 1867, developer James Mulry completed construction of three identical homes at 106 through 110 East 10th Street on land leased from the Stuyvesant estate.  Designed by D. & J. Jardine, the brick-faced homes rose four floors above rusticated brownstone basements.  

A bit more strait-laced than many upscale Italianate-style rowhouses at the time, these were proper and restrained.  At the parlor level, where some architects placed full-height parlor windows fronted with lacy cast iron balconies, the Jardines' windows sat upon brownstone panels.  And rather than the elaborate foliate brackets and arched pediments above other Italianate-style entranceways, these houses received straightforward cornices.

More expected of the style, the brownstone lintels of the windows were capped with handsome molded cornices atop foliate brackets, and each house wore individual Italianate cornices with fussy leafy corbels.

James Mulry initially leased 106 East 10th Street to Pedro San Juan, who operated a "segar" business on East 14th Street.  Then, in 1871, Emilie (know familiarly as Emma) Steinbach, the widow of Christian Steinbach, leased the house.  Moving in with her was her adult son, Albert.  Like most of her neighbors, Emilie took in select boarders.  In 1873, for instance, William D. Nichols, an iron dealer, and a woman who called herself Madame Selby (despite her being English), boarded here.

On March 9, 1873, Madame Selby placed an unusual notice in the New York Herald:

An English lady of experience, about returning to France, where she has resided many years, would take with her several young ladies desiring a finished education in music or the fine arts, offering them every comfort and elegant society, as she is highly connected in the artistic world.  For particulars, please call from 2 to 4 P.M. or address Mme. Selby, 106 East Tenth street, New York.

Later that year, Albert Steinbach was the victim of an 18-year-old thief and presumably was forced to come home in the winter air without a coat.  On December 14, The New York Times reported that John D. Ricco had been arraigned "for stealing a coat and scarf, valued at $23, from Albert Steinback [sic], of No. 106 East Tenth street."  (The cost of the pricey garments would translate to about $625 in 2026 terms.)

Popular actor Edward Job Arnott and his wife, Emma Elizabeth Champness, were members of Wallack's Theatre troupe.  They were married in June 1874 and engaged rooms from Emilie Steinbach.  (Arnott failed to tell his bride that he had earlier abandoned his wife, also named Emma, and their two children in England in 1873.)  Theirs would not be an idyllic marriage.  On November 25, 1877, the New York Herald reported that Emma had begun divorce proceedings, charging in part that Edward "so ill-treated deponent and struck her so often again that [she] could not live with him."  Moreover, she accused him of having "carnal connection" with Rose Lyle "at divers times and places" and with other unnamed women.

The handsome leading man was a scoundrel off stage.  from the archives of The Lambs

In court, Edward Arnott coldly testified that he had never been married to Emma and "never agreed or contemplated a marriage with her."  Importantly, he said, "I was already a married man, and told her so in the early days of our acquaintance."  

Unfortunately for Emma Arnott, the judge ruled, "I must exercise my discretion by denying the present application."  Edward Arnott, while continuing his successful acting career, went on have additional bigamous marriages and scandals.

Around 1881, James Mulry leased the house to J. C. Ketcham.  The banker was highly involved in the Royal Arcanum, a fraternal organization.  On December 16, 1883, The New York Times reported on the meeting of the club at its Council Room on East 15th Street.  "At the close of the meeting a collation was provided at the house of Treasurer Ketcham, No. 106 East Tenth-street," said the article.

Ketcham and his family left in 1886, after which Mulry leased the house to Kate E. Wagner.  She sublet it to a "Mrs. Wenreth" who operated it as a boarding house.

Among her first boarders was Charles M. Plumb, the organizing secretary of The Central Committee for Protecting & Perpetuating the Separation of Church & State.  The group was formed by citizens concerned about the erosion of the Founding Fathers' principle.

Edward Arnott's messy divorce hearing had been the only taint to the respectable reputation of 106 East 10th Street until the arrest of 23-year-old Charles Deira on May 18, 1896.  At 3:00 that morning, S. P. Benedict, who lived at 61 Charles Street, awoke to see Deira standing by his bed.  The Sun reported, "Benedict demanded what he was doing there, and sprang out of bed."

"I'm in the wrong house, I guess," said Deira.  "I thought this was 61 Perry street."

Benedict spat, "I don't believe you."

"You must excuse me.  I made a mistake a block," said Deira and he rushed out of the house.  Because he was in his night clothes, Benedict did not follow.  However, the sight of a man running down Charles Street at 3:00 in the morning raised the suspicions of a policeman.  Deira was arrested and charged with attempted burglary.  The Sun said, "He entered Benedict's house by means of a skeleton key."

More than 30 years after he constructed 106 East 10th Street, James Mulry's estate sold it at auction to Frederick Henssler on January 19, 1899.  Henssler paid the equivalent of $238,000 in today's money.

 

Shortly afterward, Herman A. Fisher, his wife and daughter, rented rooms here.  Fisher was the treasurer of William Wicke & Co., a maker of cigar boxes and cigar ribbons.  On the night of November 20, 1900, Francis Dillon was walking along 164th Street in the Bronx when he came across a man lying in a vacant lot "with a bullet hole in his right temple," as reported by The New York Times.  It was 40-year-old Herman Fisher.  The New-York Tribune noted, "The police believe the man committed suicide."

The following year, resident E. C. Curtis, who was a paperhanger, experienced what could be described only as a wild ride.  He was removed from the house in an ambulance on the night of May 18, 1901, after he "became suddenly ill from kidney trouble," according to the New-York Tribune.  At the corner of 21st Street and Second Avenue, the ambulance was blocked by a lumber truck and so the driver "steered the horse on the sidewalk."  Curtis's ride to the hospital became violent.

The ambulance swung from side to side as it went up and then down the curb, and the reins broke.  The driver picked them up, and had to reach away out of the wagon to hold them.  He drove as fast as the horse could go.  The horse knew the way, and dashed through the gateway of Bellevue so fast that the traces [the straps that connected the horse to the ambulance] broke.

In December 1904, Frederick Henssler leased 106 East 10th Street to Rosetta Hertz, who continued to lease rented rooms within the house.  Although never converted to apartments, the owner was given a violation in 1937 for operating a "multiple dwelling."

Little changed on the outside, today the handsome structure is a single family home.

The 1912 Passavant Building - 440 Park Avenue South

 

Once lined with aristocratic mansions, by the first years of the 20th century, Park Avenue was bustling with commerce and traffic.  In 1911, the estate of Willard Parker sold the 90 x 100 foot property at the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue (renamed Park Avenue South in 1959) and East 30th Street.  The newly-formed No. 440 Fourth Avenue Company hired the architectural firm of Cross & Cross to design a 16-story commercial structure on the site.

The building went up with lightning speed.  The architects filed plans on February 16, 1912, and the construction was completed on December 1.   Costing $500,000 to erect (about $16.7 million in 2026), Cross & Cross designed the structure in the Academic Classicism (sometimes called Academic Classical) style.  

The stately four-story base was distinguished by monumental, three-story fluted Corinthian pilasters.  Renaissance-inspired terra cotta panels of torches and shields separated the openings of the fourth floors.  The brick-faced midsection, or shaft, was unadorned; while a triple-height Corinthian colonnade at the top section echoed ancient Greek prototypes.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Before the first shovel broke ground for the building, the owners had signed a lease for its major tenant.  On March 23, 1912, in reporting that construction contracts had been signed, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted, "It will be known as the Passavant Building."  

Passavant & Co. would occupy the basement and first through sixth floors.  In its December 1912 issue, The American Silk Journal commented, "The new building is a fitting monument to the great success which Passavant & Co. have obtained in the various mercantile fields which they are engaged in through their importing and commission business."  The article noted, "the builders have produced a magnificent structure which stands for the very latest word in modern office and loft building."

Founded on June 1, 1853 by Gebrüder Passavant on Broad Street, the commission firm dealt in "silks, ribbons, velvets, dress goods and other branches of foreign and domestic dry goods," according to The American Silk Journal.  The article mentioned, "The ten upper floors of the building are being rented to firms in the silk trade for lofts, offices and showrooms."

Among the other initial tenants were James H. Moffett & Co., importers of knit goods; the importing and commission house of Boessneck, Broesel & Co.; linen merchant Henry W. A. Page; and importer Remy, Schmidt & Pleissner.  The latter firm leased additional space in the building in March 1913, just a year after moving in.

Henry W. A. Page was described by The Evening World as a "wealthy, eccentric linen merchant."  When he relocated his business into the Passavant Building in January 1913, he was already in trouble with the Government.  His problems started in 1907 when his wife sued him for divorce.  When she was successful, Page railed that the courts were corrupt and pushed the United States Congress to investigate the New York judiciary.  When his appeals were ignored, he "made a bitter attack by letter on Chairman [Henry De Lamar] Clayton and other members of the Judiciary Committee," according to The New York Times.  He called Clayton and the House Committee "crooks."

Page was indicted and extradited to Washington to stand trial for criminal libel.  He was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.  But, reported The New York Times, "he was permitted to leave town on parole after promising to refrain from making attacks on public officers."

That promise turned out to be too difficult for Page to keep.  In May 1913, he sent a 113-page letter "by express" to President Woodrow Wilson, "asking for Executive assistance to right wrongs" which he had suffered by the New York State court and Government officials.  The Department of Justice responded by issuing a warrant for his arrest.

The wealthy businessman went on the lam.  On May 23, 1913, The Evening World reported that Secret Service men had gone to his office in the Passavant Building the previous night, saying, "employees of the building told them that Page had not been around for more than a week."  At the New York Athletic Club, where Page lived, they were told that he had left "early this week without giving any hint of his destination."  The Secret Service traced his baggage to Grand Central.  The Evening World said that the agents discovered that Page had gone either to Boston or Canada, "with the intention of sailing for England."  The New York Times noted, "the doors of his office were found locked, though it was said that employes [sic] had been carrying on the business in his absence."

It appeared that Page had successfully escaped capture.  But the firebrand could not contain his ire.  On March 1, 1914, The New York Times reported that members of the Diplomatic Corps had received letters "attacking President Wilson."  Sent from Seattle, they said in part that Wilson had "hired assassins to arrest him--presumably detectives obeying the order of the court."

In the meantime, a tenant definitely not part of the silk or textile industries at the time was the General Film Company.  The firm supplied silent movies to theaters.  In the spring of 1913, reels of film began disappearing and within 10 months, according to The New York Times, it "has lost films worth $150,000."  

A break in the mysterious case came early in January 1914 when a messenger boy told Harry Buxbaum, manager of General Film Company, that one of the company's movies was being shown in a theater on Second Avenue.  The Improved Film Company supplied that theater with films.  Detectives trailed a messenger boy from that firm to the Passavant Building.  They stopped George Brown as he left the building "with four films under his arms," reported The New York Times.  The well-planned scheme devised by Samuel Marcusson, the head of Improved Film Company, quickly unraveled.

Marcusson paid Brown and Martin Hilbert, an 18-year-old stock room boy, $2 and $3 each to purloin films.  Marcusson then presented himself as an agent of General Film Company to the various theaters' management.  At Marcusson's business, detectives discovered 47 General Film Company reels.  They were a fraction of the estimated 250 reels that had been stolen in the past year.  Marcusson pleaded guilty in court on March 16 and was sentenced to six months in prison.

Perhaps the first publishing firm to lease space in the building was Condé Nast & Co., publisher of Vogue magazine, which took the entire 10th floor in August 1915.  It was the scene of a bizarre accident a year later.  On October 31, 1916, the New-York Tribune reported that about six girls had worked overtime the previous evening.  "It was noticeably warm in the office.  One after another, and then in pairs, the girls tugged at the big window."  Unable to open it, they telephoned the building's office and Frank Mather, a porter, came up.

Mather tugged and tugged and finally the sash gave way.  But in doing so, the porter plunged out of the window.  A few seconds later, the automatic sprinklers in the Johnson, Cowdin & Co., ribbon manufacturers, triggered.  That initiated a response by the fire department.  

When firefighters arrived, they could find no blaze, although Johnson, Cowdin & Co. was being flooded.  The New-York Tribune wrote, "Some of the 'Vogue' girls, who had run screaming to the street, helped to solve the mystery."  They told the responders that Frank had fallen from the window.  "It must have killed him," they said.

The firefighters climbed to the roof of the single-story extension behind the building and discovered Mather unconscious, but not dead.  He had landed on the wire grating that protected the automatic sprinkler plug, "turning on water, fire alarm and burglar alarm," said the article.  Miraculously, the 47-year-old Mather survived the fall, although his condition was deemed serious.

Joining Condé Nast & Co. in the building were the publishing firms The Horseless Age and Hubbell-Leavens Company.  With America's entry into World War I, Hubbell-Leavens published Conspiracies In America in 1917.  Among the 17 chapter titles were "Germany Intermeddling with Mexican Affairs," "Germany's Spy System and Vandalism," and "America's Duty to Civilization."

Ironically, at the same time, Hans Jacobson was employed by the Audiger & Meyer Silk Company in the building.  The New-York Tribune explained on August 2, 1918, he had worked for the firm "since he came to this country from Germany, seven years ago."  The article said that Jacobson and a cohort had been arrested for conducting espionage for the Germany Government.  Both men confessed and revealed the complex details of their activities.

The building continued to house, mainly, publishing and silk firms.  Occupying space in the 1920s, for instance, were the Falcon Silk Company, the Roosevelt Silk Mills Corp., and silk merchants Ressell & Co.  Passavant & Co. remained here at least through 1929.

The 1930s saw more publishing companies in the Passavant Building: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; Howe Publishing; and C. S. Hammond & Co., publishers of maps.  William Ogden Wiley was president of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., founded by his great-grandfather, Charles Wiley, in 1807.  William had been with the firm since 1890 and would become president in 1941.  William Ogden Wiley retired in 1956, but remained the honorary chairman of the firm until his death at 95 on January 15, 1958.

Appleton-Century-Crofts Publishing moved into the building around 1970.  Specializing in educational books, among its releases that year were Victorian Poets and Prose Writers, The American Novel Through Henry James, and Romantic Poets and Prose Writers.  The firm was acquired by Prentice-Hall in 1973, but retained its name and was still in the building as late as 2013.

Another long-lasting tenant was Dramatist Play Service, Inc., which moved in around 1995.  Established in 1936, it handles acting editions and performance rights of plays and remains in the building.

Cross & Cross's Passavant Building has been hailed by architectural critics throughout the decades.  Happily, renovations to the entrance and storefronts have not greatly altered the structure's appearance, and the heroic fluted pilasters still stand untouched.

photographs by the author

Schwartz & Gross's 1926 215 West 78th Street

 

When Leopold M. and Lina R. Whitehead moved into the high-stooped brownstone at 215 West 78th Street, their home was the height of domestic fashion.  It was one of ten high-stooped brownstones designed by Thom & Wilson in 1890.  By the post-World War I years, however, the vogue for apartment living had supplanted that of private homes.  In 1926, the Brevoort Estates, Inc. demolished four of the vintage homes--211 through 217 West 78th Street, and hired the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a nine-story apartment building on the site.  

Construction cost $300,000, or about $5.5 million in 2026 terms.  The architects designed the building in a 1920s take on Renaissance Revival.  A classic broken pediment with a cartouche and shield sat above the centered entrance within the rusticated limestone base.  The upper eight floors were clad with red brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  Schwartz & Gross arranged them into two matching side-by-side sections--both flanked with full-height rounded bays.  Every other spandrel of the bays were ornamented with elaborate Renaissance-style decorations.  The architects forewent a cornice in favor of a brick parapet.

Canvas awnings at every window shielded heat and damaging sunlight.  The building replaced brownstones like those seen on either side.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Potential renters could choose apartments of either four or five rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 14, 1926 was headlined "New Building" and touted, "Baths, glass enclosed showers, beautiful bay windows."  It noted there was a "special doctor's or dentist apartment with A-C and D-C current" available.

Among the early residents was bachelor William McCabe, also known as "Tough Willie."  He was described by The New York Evening Post as a "Broadway sport."  McCabe owned a stable of race horses and financed prize fighters.  Most importantly, however, he was a close associate of gangster Arnold Rothstein.  

On November 1, 1928, Willie McCabe and Arnold Rothstein joined other underworld figures in a "high spade" poker game.  Three days later, the game was still going on and Rothstein had lost $320,000.  Claiming the game was fixed, Rothstein refused to pay and was gunned down.  Willie McCabe suddenly disappeared.

The New York Evening Post reported on November 14, "McCabe has not been at his home, 215 West Seventy-eighth Street, since the shooting."  The article said, "McCabe, now sought by [District Attorney Jaob H.] Banton, is in Savannah, Ga., promoting dog races."

But then, The New York Times reported that McCabe had "dropped out of sight...only to bob up a week or so later with what District Attorney Banton said was an iron-clad alibi."

Willie McCabe continued to skirt law enforcement, but his gangland career ended on August 26, 1931.  The New York Times reported, "The underworld went about its robberies, its stabbings and its threats yesterday."  The article said that while McCabe had managed for years to be "unmolested by the police, [he] got into trouble with his own kind."  McCabe was fatally stabbed "in an early morning brawl in the 61 Club at 61 East Fifty-second Street."   

Details inspired by the Italian Renaissance decorate the facade.

Willie McCabe was assuredly well-acquainted with another resident, Herman Handler and his wife, Thelma.  Born in 1895, Handler was, like McCabe, a bookie.  In April 1935, while he was in Hamburg, Germany, he met Margie Lee, a "member of a group of acrobatic dancers," as described by The New York Times, while her troupe was touring.  Herman and the blonde dancer began an affair, although Margie would later insist she never knew he was married.

In July, Thelma found a photograph of Margie and the couple separated.  Thelma "insisted, however, that she and her husband remained friendly and kept in touch with each other by telephone," said The New York Times.  Herman moved into the Hotel Belvedere on West 48th Street.  Like Willie McCabe, he would run afoul of "his own kind."

Two months after leaving 215 West 78th Street, on September 12, 1935, The New York Times reported, "Herman Handler, 40 years old, a bookmaker...was found shot dead at 7 o'clock yesterday morning in his roadster."  Detectives said that evidence showed that Handler was shot in his car and "driven to the place as he was dying."

The family of David and Etta Simon, lived here in the early 1940s.  Born in 1902, he was an insurance broker.  The couple had two sons, Lewis and Robert, born in 1928 and 1932 respectively.  On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America declared war on Japan.  It would make a significant impact on the Simons. 

On March 18, 1942, The New York Sun said that "everything was peaceful in the household of David Simon, 43...until a reporter arrived with the information that Simon's serial number was drawn fourth in the draft."  The article said that Robert and Lewis "started jumping about the living room, shouting, 'Daddy's in the army, Daddy's going to war.'"

Simon told the reporter he was ready to fight.  "I'd like to be with MacArthur."  And Etta was equally enthusiastic.  "They ought to take all the men," she said, adding, "I can go to work.  I was a stenographer before I was married and I could go back to that."

Another family in the building directly affected by the war was that of Eugene and Florence B. Moses.  The couple was married in 1914, and had two children, Eleanor, born in 1916, and Charles G., born in 1919.  Like David Simon, Charles was inducted into the army.  On September 2, 1943, the War Department issued the latest list of missing and wounded in action.  Among those injured in the "North African Area including Sicily" was Charles G. Moses.  (Happily, Charles returned to America safely, and on February 28, 1947, The New York Times reported that he and his wife, the former Peggy Levi, had welcomed a daughter.)

In 1957, singer Johnny Mathis released his second single to sell one million copies, "Chances Are," and later that year his "Wild is the Wind" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  Riding high on his success, the following year he purchased 215 West 78th Street.  It was, perhaps, his first real estate investment.  He later would tell a British reporter, "I've bought apartments in New York, and a post office in the Midwest."  Mathis owned 215 West 78th Street until April 1963.

Among the tenants at the time was Lucy Seckel Stark, the widow of surgeon and gynecologist Meyer M. Stark, and former wife of poet and novelist James Oppenheim.  Lucy graduated from Hunter College and Teachers College.  She began teaching English in 1925 and did not retire until 1955.

Freelance photojournalist Solomon Charles Tobach and his wife, Dr. Ethel Tobach, were residents by the 1960s.  The couple was married in 1947.

Ethel was born on November 7, 1921 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and was brought to America as an infant.  She received her Ph.D. in comparative psychology from New York University in 1957.  By the time she and Solomon moved into 215 West 78th Street, she was affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History.  She co-founded the Animal Behavior Society in 1964 and in 1972 became vice president of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Solomon Tobach "specialized in taking pictures of news personalities," according to The New York Times.  He worked for The Associated Press, the Agence France Press, United Press International and The Medical Tribune.  Solomon suffered a fatal heart attack in their apartment at the age of 51 on February 19, 1969.  Ethel would survive to the age of 93, dying on August 14, 2015.

The building became a co-op in the 1970s.  It is essentially unchanged, sans the canvas awnings, since its opening in 1926.

photographs by the author

The Lost Rebecca Mason Jones Mansion - 705 Fifth Avenue

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

John Mason began his career as a dry goods merchant and branched into banking and railroads.  (He was the second president of the Chemical Bank and a founder of New York City's first railroad, the New York & Harlem.)  In 1825, he purchased several acres of rocky terrain north of the city in what would become Midtown Manhattan.  Three of Mason's daughters married into the socially prominent Jones family.  Mary, the eldest, married Isaac Jones; Rebecca married his cousin, Isaac Colford Jones; and Serena married George Jones.

Mason died in 1839 but his will was tied up in court for 15 years.  Heirs, including Mary Mason Jones, charged that as he was dying, unscrupulous relatives (including Rebecca and her husband) propped him into a sitting position, tied him between a chair in the back and a board in front to keep him from slumping over and forced his signature.  Finally, in 1854, the case was settled and the midtown property divvied up.  Mary Mason Jones received the vacant land between Fifth to Park Avenue and 57th to 58th Streets.  Rebecca inherited a like amount--Fifth to Park Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets.

Both women were widows.  In 1867, Mary Mason Jones commissioned Robert Mook to design a striking row of marble-faced mansions on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, anchored by her own home at 1 East 57th Street.  Rebecca Jones followed suit, hiring architect Detlef Lienau in 1869 to fill the blockfront from 55th to 56th Streets with resplendent Second Empire-style mansions. 

Lienau had come to New York from Paris in 1848.  Called by the Columbia Spectator decades later in 1936 as "the first architect with Paris training to practice in the United States after Colonial times" and a "leading architect of the period," he was instrumental in introducing the Second Empire style to America.  By now, he had designed the mansions of millionaires like Hart M. Shiff at 32 Fifth Avenue, William C. Schermerhorn at 49 West 23rd Street, and John Jacob Astor III at 338 Fifth Avenue.

 

Lienau designed the eight, five-story mansions in an A-B-A-B-B-A-B-A configuration, the mansards of the A models rising slightly higher than those of the others.  Unlike Mary Mason Jones's marble row, Lienau faced these with "Ohio stone," a type of sandstone.  The 1881 New York Illustrated said that, rather than the ubiquitous brownstone in New York City, this gave the homes "the happy union of lightness with the ideal of mass and dignity."  It said the mansions had a "genial, homelike aspect."

(Interestingly, Rebecca's niece, author Edith Jones Wharton, did not agree.  In an article in Harper's Weekly in 1938, she called the row, "a block of pale greenish limestone houses (almost uglier than the brownstone ones)."

Rebecca Colford Jones initially lived in 705 Fifth Avenue, at the far right.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Like her sister had done, Rebecca retained the southernmost mansion, 705 Fifth Avenue, for herself.  Her country homes were in Saratoga, New York and Newport, Rhode Island.  Rebecca retained possession of the entire row, reserving two of the homes for the use of her children, Helen and Lewis Colford.  Helen and her husband, Woodbury Langdon, moved into the mansion at the far end of the block; and Lewis and his wife Catharine, moved into No. 707. 

Rebecca's townhouse was the scene of the dowager socialite's polite entertainments.  In 1873, for instance, The Daily Graphic reported on her "rose-bud party."  (The term "rose-bud" referred to debutantes.)  The young women would meet "a select company of gentlemen," and each would receive a bunch of rosebuds.

In 1880, The New York Sun described the entertainments within Rebecca's home, saying that "many luxuries and delicacies, as well as many European forms of entertainment, were introduced which had been unknown to the thrift and simplicity of our grandfathers."

Rebecca Mason Jones died in 1879.  On February 15, the New-York Tribune reported that she left Helen Langdon "the east side of Fifth-ave., from Fifth-fifth to Fifth-sixth-sts."  Rebecca had been concerned that her heirs would break up the handsome row.  She wrote in her will:

It has long been a favorite idea with me that this property should be kept together, both because it was so derived by me from my father, and because it is my judgment that is can be more advantageously improved for future uses if held entire than if I were to divide it by my will.

Sydney Colford Jones was Rebecca's grandson, the only son of Lewis Colford Jones and Catherine Berryman.  Soon after his grandmother's death, the 26-year-old applied to the courts to change his name to Sydney Jones Colford.  On May 27, 1879, the New-York Tribune explained, "the reasons for the change assigned by the applicant...were that the surname Jones was too common to properly distinguish any one hearing it."

These interior shots do not identify the particular mansion within the row.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

While his widowed mother remained at 707 Fifth Avenue, Sidney and his wife, the former Laura Chartrand, moved into No. 705.  In the spring of 1881, The New York Times reported the heart-wrenching story of "Madani, the poor Arab in the New-York Hospital."  The article initiated donations from New Yorkers.  On May 11, the newspaper reported that a donor who signed his name "a New-Yorker" had sent in $2, and "Lately, a lady, who had also read in The Times about the poor refugee, left him $15."  The article continued, "Mr. Sidney [sic] C. Colford, of No. 705 Fifth-avenue, told the hospital authorities that if there was not a sufficient amount of money contributed for paying Madani's passage home he would make up the balance out of his own pocket."

As early as 1887, Margaret A. Oliver was operating 705 Fifth Avenue as an exclusive boarding house.  Also living in the mansion were her son, William B. Oliver, Jr. and his wife, the youngest daughter of multi-millionaire John W. Masury.  The upscale operation was reflected in her testimony in 1889 when she said:

About the 1st of May 1 [1888] I let [rooms] to Prof. Rees...In the family of Prof. Rees were a gentleman, wife, two children, and maid, five persons.  Prof. Rees paid $45 a week for the whole family.

The weekly board would equal $1,530 in 2026. When asked how she would describe her board (i.e, the food she supplied her guests) she replied, "First class.  Better than a hotel, there is nothing better than I would buy.  Yes, it was as good as a first class hotel board, yes."

Among Mrs. Oliver's boarders in 1887 was Rev. Sullivan H. Weston.  The unmarried cleric was born in Bristol, Maine on October 7, 1816 and had been assistant rector of St. John's Chapel since 1852.  In 1886 he developed a tumor, but only his physician was aware of it.  On the morning of October 3, 1887, "he arose before breakfast, left the house at 705 Fifth-avenue, where he was boarding," reported The New York Times, "and went to a private hospital."  That afternoon, he underwent an operation.  The surgery seemed to have been successful and The Sun reported, "He sent word daily to his boarding house at 705 Fifth avenue of his progress toward recovery."

But then, on October 15, the newspaper reported, "Last Tuesday, however, lockjaw set in, with fatal results."  The Sun commented that his friends "were shocked by the news of his death."  Extensive obituaries of the esteemed cleric were published in numerous newspapers.

Helen Jones Langdon died in 1895 and the Fifth Avenue block was inherited by her son, Woodbury Gersdorf Langdon.  On November 24, 1896, The New York Times reported that he was doing $4,000 worth of "alterations" to 705 Fifth Avenue.  He leased his grandmother's former mansion to railroad mogul Edward H. Harriman and his family.  Born in 1848, Harriman married Mary Williamson Averell in 1879 and they had six children (including William Averell Harriman who would become Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman, Governor of New York, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and to Britain.)  The family's country estate, Arden, was near Tuxedo, New York.

On March 19, 1910, The New York Times reported a shocking development.  "The Woodbury G. Langdon house, No. 705 Fifth avenue, was leased...to Eugene Glaenzer & Co., art dealers.  That was the first business invasion of this part of Fifth avenue."  

 

The Evening Post, November 29, 1910 (copyright expired)

In remodeling the mansion for commercial purposes, Langdon created a charming outdoor area with a fountain in his grandmother's rear yard for Glaenzer & Co.

The Air-Scout, January 1911 (copyright expired)

Langdon continued to garner upscale tenants for the property.  In 1912, Bagues Freres Co., a decorative ironwork designer and manufacturer, moved in.

Architecture & Building, November 1912, (copyright expired)

In what most likely would have troubled Rebecca Jones, on December 5, 1912, The New York Times reported that Woodbury G. Langdon had recently erected an apartment house "on the Fifth-sixth Street portion of the block."  Now, said the article, he had sold the entire blockfront to the Number 705 Fifth Avenue Corporation.  (What it did not mention was that Langdon was its president.)

This photograph around 1912 shows Langdon's new buildings on the northern part of the block.  Only a sign for Eugene Glaezner & Co. discreetly placed on the 55th Street side of the Jones house hints that it is no longer a private mansion.  photograph by George P. Hall, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Rebecca Mason Jones mansion remained, relatively intact, until it and the houses at 707 through 711 Fifth Avenue were demolished for the National Broadcasting Company Building, which survives.

photograph by the author

The 1889 Louis Isaacs House - 349 West 122nd Street

 

Within three years, Joseph W. and Abram Alonzo Teets transformed the block of West 122nd Street between Morningside and Manhattan Avenues from vacant lots into a neighborhood.  In 1888, they hired architect J. A. Webster to design eleven three-story-and-basement brownstone houses on the north side of the block.  The following year, Webster was back, designing ten houses on the south side for the brothers.

Among the initial project, completed in 1889, was 349 West 122nd Street.  Just 15-feet wide, it was identical to its neighbors.  The tall stoop was guarded by beefy iron newels and railings.  Each floor was belted with carved foliate bands, and the windows wore prominent molded cornices supported by fluted brackets.  

Financially involved in her sons' development projects was Louisa S. Wood Teets.  On July 5, 1890, for instance, she purchased five of the northern houses--342 to 360 West 122nd Street--from Joseph and Abram Alonzo Teets for $25,000.  By then she owned 349 West 122nd as well.

Louisa Teets sold the house to Louis Isaacs, who listed his occupation as "buyer" at 309 Grand Street.  He and his wife, the former Marion Norburn, had five children, Charles Richard, Margaret Maud, Alfreda, Howard Norburn, and Florence Belle.  The eldest, Charles, was 10 years old in 1889 and the youngest, Florence Belle, was an infant.

Somewhat surprisingly, when Louis Isaacs sold the house in December 1906, the purchaser was Philip Teets, the widower of  Louisa (she died in 1895).  He paid $8,900 for the property, or about $320,000 in 2026 terms.

Teet leased the house to the family of James F. Douglass, a woolens importer at 244 Fifth Avenue.  He and his wife had a son and daughter.

The quiet lives within the household was upset when the Douglasses' name became fodder for newspaper articles nationwide in 1907.  At the beginning of summer, daughter Lorene, who was then 15 years old, was invited to a gathering of teens at the summer cottage of Joseph A. Physioc, a theatrical scenery painter, in Bayville, Long Island.  The Physiocs' son, Joseph, Jr., was also 15.

Also at the party on June 4 were Lilac MacManus, "a prospective heiress of New York city, 16 years old," as described by the Montana newspaper The Anaconda Standard; and 16-year-old Frank A. Libby.  

At some point, the four decided to sneak away and get married.  They made their way to Oyster Bay and the parsonage of Methodist minister Rev. M. Wilson.  Joseph Physioc said he was 22 years old and an engineer, Libby said he was 21 and was also an engineer.  The girls professed to be 18.

Despite their youthful appearance and clothing, and the fact that the four giggled and made light of the ceremony, Rev. Wilson married the two couples.  When the marriages came to light, according to The Anaconda Standard, they "caused wrath and consternation in the homes of four well-known New York families."  The news scandalized the summer community as well.  On September 13, 1907, The New York Times said, "Gossip has been busy all summer at the little village of Bayville, L. I., concerning a rumored double wedding, in which all of the contracting parties were under 17 years of age."

Lorene Douglass's mother was incensed and blamed Rev. Wilson.  She told a reporter from the Spokesman-Review, 

My daughter wore short dresses and had her hair down her back.  She had told me no effort was made to alter their childish appearance.  Lorene does not appear to realize the seriousness of this thing.  She said that while the minister was before them everybody tittered and acted as though the affair was a great joke.

A reporter from the The New York Times was less successful in getting an interview.  When he called at the 122nd Street house on September 12, "a servant said that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas [sic] were in Canada.  She also said that they had no daughter named Lorene."  The journalist tried a second attempt that afternoon.  "A young man, who said he was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas [sic] said that his mother was upstairs, but could not be seen," said the article.

When he asked if Lorene was home, the young man said, "I have no sister.  This marriage story is all a mistake."

Despite the family's denials, The New York Times discovered that the Douglasses "consulted their lawyers early in the Summer, and were told that the marriages were not binding owing to the ages of the four."

Philip Teets died that year.  In September 1909, the Teets estate placed 349 West 122nd Street on the market.  An advertisement described it as being "in a quiet, elegant section of Harlem; an ideal residence."

As seen today, the rich woodwork of the parlor level continued throughout the upper floors. images via zillow.com

It was purchased by Elizabeth Cassidy Henry Smith, a real estate operator, and wife of Charles J. Smith.  The house was rife with Charleses.  In addition to the couple's son, Charles, Jr., Charles A. Henry was the son of Elizabeth's previous marriage.  It appears that the only male in the household not named Charles was John A. Smith.  The young man worked as a topographical draftsman in the Bronx Borough President's office.  His annual salary in 1914 was $1,350 per year--a modest $43,700 today.

Charles Smith was too young to fight in World War I, but his half-brother was not.  Charles A. Henry went overseas with the Army.  On November 19, 1918, the New-York Tribune reported that he was missing in action.  Shortly afterward, an official Government announcement listed him "killed in action."

Charles J. Smith died on April 30, 1922 and his funeral was held in the parlor on May 3, followed by a requiem mass at Corpus Christi Church at 121st Street and Broadway.  Around this time, Elizabeth's widowed father, John Cassidy, moved into the house.  

Charles Jr. was still here in 1928, when he was involved in a serious accident.  He and an associate, James O'Brien, were riding in a taxicab on Madison Avenue on March 2 when it crashed into another cab at 85th Street.  One "ran into a window of the Busy Bee Grocery at 1,143 Madison Avenue," reported The New York Times, and the other "crashed into the window of the Reese & Reese Cleaning Establishment, across the street."  Charles Smith suffered serious cuts and O'Brien's skull was fractured.  Neither of the cabbies was injured, but both were arrested, "charged with reckless driving," according to the article.

There would be one more funeral in the house.  John Cassidy died on April 19, 1919 and his funeral was held on the 22nd.  Elizabeth Smith sold 349 West 122nd Street shortly afterward.  

It appears that it was next operated as a rooming house.  Surprisingly, given that the Harlem neighborhood was now the epicenter of Manhattan's Black community, the tenants seem to have been mostly German.  Living here in 1934, for instance, were Peter Franz and Meyer Goldschmidt.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Depression years saw a quick turnover of owners.  The property was sold again in December 1936, and resold in November 1937 for $6,500 (about $142,000 today).

Rooming here in 1938 was 35-year-old John Workman, described by the Long Island City Daily Star and North Shore Daily Journal as a "Negro WPA worker."  (The Works Progress Administration was created in 1935 to create jobs during the Great Depression.)  He was working on a construction project at the North Beach Airport on October 6 that year when something went horribly awry.

The newspaper said he was arrested on a charge of attempted felonious assault after being "accused of trying to beat up a foreman" on the job.  The foreman, Joseph Urlacher, pressed the charges.  It was not the first time Workman had been in trouble.  The article said he, "was acquitted of another felonious assault charge last year."

A recent floorplan shows the current configuration.  image via zillow.com

Relatively recently restored to a single-family home, a surprising amount of original interior detailing survives throughout the house.  

photographs by the author