The New York County Courthouse - 60 Centre Street

 

photograph by wallyg

Twenty-two architects submitted designs for a new New York County Courthouse in 1913.  Guy Lowell, a Boston architect, won the competition with his "round building."  On April 19, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide remarked that the substantial commission came with side effects.  "Mr. Lowell will have about two thousand working and detail drawings to prepare, and it will be necessary for him to engage a larger force of draftsmen and larger quarters."  The article added that from his $200,000 fee, about $130,000 of that would be eaten up by "office expenses."

The journal explained that the winning design would now go to "the Court House Board and their architect, Walter Cook," for approval.  That process would initiate the first domino to fall in a long string of disappointments and delays.  On June 21, 1913, the Record & Guide reported, "The justices of the Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday...Mr. Guy Lowell's court house plan."

The borough president invited a committee of five architects to suggest "modifications" to Lowell's circular plan.  They handed Lowell a number of suggested sketches and he subsequently "prepared modified sketches."  Nearly a year later, on May 16, 1916, the Record & Guide reported on the "modified design for the courthouse," saying that the exterior of the building was "only slightly changed."

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, May 16, 1914 (copyright expired)

Lowell's task was, by no means, finished.  On April 24, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that the courthouse site had been "amended."  The article noted, "Guy Lowell, the architect, is to have the revised plan of the building ready by May 1.  He has a large force of draftsmen at work."

The revised Courthouse site.  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, April 24, 1915 (copyright expired)

But red tape, construction costs, and a world war continued to retard the process of erecting a county courthouse.  Then, on November 29, 1919, seven years after Guy Lowell's initial design was accepted, the Record & Guide wrote, "Final action has been taken, after years of effort, upon the plan for a new County court house in Manhattan.  Radical changes, however, will be made in the structure in size, layout, and in cost."

Lowell's original plans projected the cost at between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000 (about $372 million in 2026 terms).  The article said, "The new court house is expected to cost about $6,000,000 and its completion is looked for in about two years.  It will be hexagonal in shape."  Lowell's revised design was "on a less elaborate scale."

Lowell released the revised downscaled rendering in December 1919.  Record & Guide December 20, 1919 (copyright expired)

The new hexagonal design provided for 32 courtrooms for the Supreme Court and ten for the City Court.  "The new Court House will be built of the same excellent materials and will have the same carefully worked out conveniences as the building originally planned," explained the Record & Guide on December 20, 1919.  The article detailed:

The entire exterior, including the porch, will be of granite of a warm tone.  A fine porch or portico will occupy the westerly one of the six sides, giving character and dignity to the building...The other five sides, occupied by the courts, depend for their architectural effect on careful composition--produced by the skillful balancing of void and well space, so that there are no columns or architectural projections to shut off light from the court room windows.

Excavation for the foundation had started in 1918, a year before that article.  And yet Lowell would have to make one more significant change.  On September 4, 1920, he explained in a letter to Fiorello La Guardia, president of the Board of Aldermen, that the granite--a part of the plans since 1913--was now too expensive to use.  He said in part, "we cannot afford all the enhancement that we could allow ourselves some years ago."  Explaining that limestone would be "$600,000 less than the available granite bid," he suggested the former material.  He said, "You see that, though I would have liked granite, I have not allowed my personal preferences to supersede my real wish, which is to give the city the best we can for the money."

Construction was once again delayed by an obstacle that never should have happened.  On November 23, 1920 the Washington D.C. Evening Star reported that the cartage firm Holland & Co. "began dumping ashes in the New York county courthouse excavation in February 1918, and continued doing so until recently."  Now, said the article, the city would have to spend "nearly $400,000 for removal of these ashes so that construction can be begun."

The dignified building sat alone upon its completion in 1927.  photograph by Wurts. Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

In February 1927, 14 years after Guy Lowell first sat before his drafting table and two weeks after his death, the New York County Court House was completed.  The Record & Guide said, "From the porch a collonaded [sic] lobby on the first or main floor leads to the central rotunda."  It and that lobby, said the article, "are paved with marble and have limestone columns and dado."  

The Supreme Court rooms were on the third and fourth floors.  The fifth and sixth floors were set back "leaving a space which can be used as a terrace."  Those levels held the upper part of the two-story library, the justices' reading room, dining room, justice's chambers and such.  "Each Justice's chambers consists of a small vestibule, a secretary's room, and the chamber proper," explained the Record & Guide.

The first floor plan.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide December 20, 1919 (copyright expired)

The costly structure came with a restriction taken for granted today, but highly unusual in 1920.  On March 17, The New York Times reported, "Warning cards against smoking, such as are posted in factories, on which the penalties for violations are printed, confronted attorneys and others having business in the new New York County courthouse yesterday."

An outgrowth of the Great Depression was the Works Progress Administration, which provided jobs to out-of-work Americans.  One segment found work for artists, who suddenly found themselves decorating the walls and ceilings of civic buildings throughout the country.  Included in the massive project were the decorations of the corridors, rotunda, courtrooms and assembly rooms of the New York County Courthouse.

On July 26, 1934, the Springfield Weekly Republic quoted critic Edward Alden Jewell, who panned Attillio Pusteria's new foyer murals in the New York County Courthouse as too traditional.  

The ceiling of the foyer, decorated by Attilio Pusteria.  photo by Peter Vanderwarker from the collection of the Historical Society of the New York Courts.

He said they were "precisely the decorations one would expect to find beyond the massive Corinthian columns of the portico" and complained that they represent the "inevitable allegories, such as Justice, Judgement, Mercy and Enforcement."  Jewell grumbled that American artists were being forced "to paint in the manner of Raphael."

The rotunda with its inlaid marble floors, limestone columns and 1934 dome decoration.  photo by Peter Vanderwarker from the collection of the Historical Society of the New York Courts.

Another group complained about the decoration.  But, unlike Jewell, they were not indignant about the artistic rendering, but about one particular image.  On December 19, 1936, The Detroit Tribune reported that "after a protest had been made by Harlem leaders," the Municipal Art Commission had agreed "that the WPA mural in the New York County Courthouse showing a colored man eating watermelon was 'frivolous,' and said the offending picture would be erased and something else substituted."

The New York County Courthouse became, of course, the scene of hearings and trials from the mundane to the most sensational.  In September 1938, Tammany District Leader James J. Hines, accused of "selling political protection to the underworld," was prosecuted by fledgling District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey.  Hines smugly walked out of the courthouse surrounded by a throng of reporters on September 12.  The Washington D.C. Evening Star explained that the judge "ordered a mistrial yesterday on the grounds that the youthful prosecutor by a verbal slip had 'fatally prejudiced' the jury against the white-haired political boss."

And on December 20, 1952, The New York Times began an article saying, "The man generally considered the most feared figure in the underworld was the principal witness at yesterday's hearing into waterfront conditions by the State Crime Commission.  He was Albert Anastasia, and his defiant appearance on the stand was the most dramatic incident of the hearings to date."

When the New York County Courthouse first opened, one of its elevator operators was Dominick Lupiano, a 48-year-old immigrant from Italy who had run an elevator in the old courthouse building for several years.  Decades later, the Washington D.C. Evening Star would say that he and his wife, Roselle, "scrimped" to put their son, Vincent, through law school.  On one occasion, State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Wagner, Sr. mentioned to Lupiano, "One day, Dominick, you may be taking one of your own sons up to his own chambers.  In this country anything is possible, you know."

Lupiano retired after 40 years of service.  But the now-84-year-old came back on January 4, 1955.  That day Vincent A. Lupiano was sworn in as a justice of the State Supreme Court.  The Evening Star said:  "After the swearing-in ceremony, Dominick Lupiano donned his old elevator operator's uniform cap with a flourish.  Beaming, he escorted Justice Vincent Lupiano to the elevator and took him upstairs to his chambers."

Another set of high profile trials was held here in 1970.  Sixteen members of the Black Panthers were tried on "charges of conspiring to bomb Manhattan department stores, the Bronx Botanical Gardens, police stations, subway switching-rooms and railroad tracks," said The New York Times on February 1.  (The trials ended with mixed guilty pleas, murder convictions and dismissed charges.)

In March 1988, the restoration of the rotunda mural, Law Through the Ages, was initiated.  Somewhat surprisingly, The New York Times reported that the project "is being paid for by lawyers and judges in the building."

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Guy Lowell's dignified and stately Roman Classical style structure has not only been the venue of serious legal trials, but it has inspired producers throughout the decades.  The broad exterior staircase and monumental columns have appeared in countless movies and television shows.  And it remains a crucial element in the architectural personality of Foley Square.

Le Brun's 1889 Hook & Ladder Co. 14 - 120 East 125th Street

 

image via the Historic Districts Council

In 1865, "suburban" fire companies were established in the mostly rural Harlem district.  Less busy than their urban counterparts, the fire fighters were given less pay and no horse-drawn equipment.  Included in these companies was Suburban Ladder No. 14 at 120 East 125th Street.

As Harlem developed, Suburban Ladder No. 14 was replaced by Hook & Ladder Company 14 on January 1, 1868.  Still using the station house on December 18, 1881, the New York Dispatch described the company as "one of the best truck companies in the upper part of the city.  It has good officers and men, the latter being under excellent discipline."  But in 1888, the company was in serious need of modern accommodations.

A year earlier, on June 18, 1887, The Real Estate Record & Guide commented that fire stations were an exception to the very few "decent-looking" buildings erected by the city.  "The Fire Department...had the good sense to employ architects of repute to design their buildings, and selected Messrs. N. Le Brun & Son for that purpose."  Napoleon Le Brun had been appointed official architect for the department in 1879.  Before the turn of the century he and his son would be responsible for the design of 42 fire houses.  

Napoleon Le Brun & Son filed plans for a "four-story brick building" on April 27, 1888, projecting the cost at $16,500--or about $576,000 in 2026.  Using a variation of its typical Queen Anne design, the firm added touches of Romanesque Revival in the undressed brownstone base, the medieval decoration carved into the second floor lintel, the rounded stone piers at the sides that terminated in carved finials, and the creative wrought-iron jib, or bracket, in the form of a dragon.  (The jib was used to haul hay bales to the attic.)  Le Brun & Son stepped away from both styles in designing the attic as a slate-shingled mansard in the Second Empire style.

Perhaps the first tragedy for Hook & Ladder Company 14 came on June 9, 1895.  Patrick Conlin had been with the company since 1883 when he was 25.  He was headed to work at 2:15 that afternoon when an alarm of fire at 165 East 112th Street came in.  The truck raced down Lexington Avenue "at full speed," as reported by The New York Times.  The article said, "he saw the truck going by and made a run to jump on the long rail which extends along the side of the truck."  Conlin slipped and fell.  The rear wheels "passed over Conlin's body, leaving him mangled and unconscious."  The 37-year-old died later that afternoon.

Rescues from burning buildings in the 19th century sometimes required dangerous, nearly gymnastic, tactics.  On September 29, 1896, Hook & Ladder Company 14 responded to a fire at 2365 Third Avenue.  When they arrived, the fire had engulfed the first floor and spread to the second.  Frederick Thompson, who occupied rooms on the fourth floor, had been asleep and was the only tenant not to escape.  Two firefighters, Thomas Corrigan and John Lutz, "saw his predicament and hastened to the rescue."

They went to the top floor of the the three-story building next door.  The Sun reported,  "Corrigan stood with one foot on the cornice of the house and reached with the other foot to the lintel of the third story of the burning house, at the same time grasping the sill of Thompson's window."  When he was certain of "the firmness of his grasp on the window sill," Corrigan threw his other arm around Thompson's waist and drew him across the void.  

Corrigan straddled the cornice and lintel of two buildings to rescue the victim.  The Sun, September 30, 1896 (copyright expired)

The Sun said, "When Lutz had taken Thompson in his grasp and drew him over on the roof a cheer went up from the crowd below, and the cheer was repeated when Corrigan climbed to the roof from his perilous position, and all three were safe."

The company's truck was pulled by three horses, the oldest of which was Paddy, who was always in the center.  The company acquired him in 1871 when he was six years old.  At the time of Corrigan's and Lutz's remarkable rescue, Paddy was "if not the oldest horse in the department, he was one of the oldest," said the New York Herald two years later.

Paddy had an unexpected best buddy, Chief, described by the newspaper as "a splendid greyhound."  In 1891, Chief was brought to the station house as a puppy.  The New York Herald said he "blundered" into Paddy's stall.  The firefighters were alarmed, expecting "to see him kicked or trampled."  Instead, "the big horse only put his head down inquiringly, and Chief licked his nose in token of good fellowship.  From that time the two were fast friends."  Every evening, Chief would bed down on the straw in a corner of Paddy's stall.  When an alarm would ring, Chief would bark, Paddy would whinny "with all the power of his throat" and the greyhound would race through the streets next to the galloping horses.

At 4:00 on the morning of August 19, 1897, Chief began wailing.  Some of the firefighters, said the New York Herald, "yelled at Chief and told him to be quiet, but he only clamored the louder."  Captain Terpeny send a man down to see what was wrong.  "That dog isn't carrying on that way for fun," he said.  And he was right.

The article said, "The big horse was very sick and his friend had been calling for help."  The FDNY's veterinarian diagnosed Paddy with cholic.  The New York Herald reported:

The horse became weaker and weaker, and finally fell down.  Chief stayed with him, licking his face and howling mournfully until the end, which was about 7 o'clock.  Then it was with great difficulty that the men got him out of the stall.

The newspaper concluded the article saying, "There is talk of giving the horse a ceremonial burial, with Chief as principal mourner."

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

On February 1, 1907, the New-York Tribune reported that the station house of Hook & Ladder Company 14 would be receiving updates by architect Edward L. Middleton.  The renovations, costing the equivalent of more than $700,000 today, included "new concrete and iron floors...for the apparatus and the sliding pole floor opening enlarged."

The new floors had much to do with modern motorized equipment.  Hook & Ladder Company 14's speedy fire trucks greatly impressed Walter J. Albert in 1922.  On the night of May 1 that year he made "a little wager" with two friends, as described by the New-York Tribune.  He bet them that Engine 14 "could get from its house at 120 East 125th Street to the [alarm] box at 133d Street and Madison Avenue in three minutes."  The friends took the bet and Albert pulled the alarm.

The newspaper said, "When Albert was caught near the box at 133d Street the firemen were in a mood to cripple him.  It was the third time they had been called out on false alarms."  The article said that Patrolman Patrick Cushen, who caught Albert, "had to protect him from the irate fireman."

At the station house, Albert confessed that he was betting on the speed of the fire engine.

"Did you win?" asked one of the detectives.

"Naw, they were two minutes slow."

By the second half of the 20th century, the personality of the congested Harlem neighborhood around the firehouse had greatly changed.  City employees like policemen and firefighters were often viewed with suspicion and derision.  At around 2:00 on the morning of December 27, 1961, Hook & Ladder Company 14's truck was passing a crowd outside a bar at Park Avenue and 123rd Street.  Suddenly a bottle smashed against the side of the fire truck.  The New York Times reported that the truck stopped "and a fight ensued."

The article said, "The street fight was broken up by an unidentified railroad detective.  He drew his pistol and forced back the crowd as it pummeled the firemen."  In the end, four fire fighters and one civilian were injured.  

In 1975, Hook & Ladder Company 14 was relocated to 2282 Third Avenue.  Its former firehouse was officially decommissioned in 2003.  Napoleon Le Brun & Son's striking firehouse sat vacant and neglected for years.  Then, on August 31, 2014, The Real Deal reported, "An abandoned 19th-century firehouse in East Harlem is getting a new lease on life as a cultural center."

Six years earlier, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito had saved the structure from the auction block by promising that it would be repurposed as a cultural center.  The Real Deal reported, "Now the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute has been selected as the building's developer."  The Daily News reported that the organization would spent $5.5 million on restoration and renovations to the building.

photograph by Steven Bornholtz

Today, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute's website explained that it "preserves and presents African Diaspora cultures, promoting arts and culture as tools for personal transformation, community-building, and social justice."

The Charles and Kate A. Katz House - 53 West 87th Street

 

In 1891, James Livingston broke ground for a row of upscale rowhouses on West 87th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.  Designed by Thom & Wilson in the Renaissance Revival style, they were completed the following year.  Among them was 53 West 87th Street.  Like the others, it was four stories tall above an English basement and faced in brownstone.  A dog-legged box stoop rose to the rusticated parlor level.  A rounded bay crowned by a stone balustrade dominated the second floor.  

Livingston retained possession of the house for years, finally selling it to Cornelius and Clarissa Outwater Doremus in March 1898 for $38,000 (about $1.4 million in 2026).  Born in 1842 and 1843, respectively, the couple had three children, Fred S., Myra, and Cornelia Adelaide (who went by her middle name).  

Doremus was president of the Germania Life Insurance Company, described by The Sun as "one of the largest insurance companies in New York."

Cornelius Doremus, Empire State Notables, 1914 (copyright expired)

Because Cornelia Adelaide had already been debuted in 1896, her name appeared next to her mother's when The New York Times reported on January 5, "Mrs. Cornelius Doremus and Miss Cornelia Doremus of 53 West Eighty-seventh Street have announced the first and third Wednesdays as their days for receiving."

That winter social season would be the last for the Doremus family in the house.  That year they sold it to Charles and Kate Anna Glatz.  The couple had two daughters, Elise Pauline and Henrietta Caroline.  (Henrietta had married Joseph Schauweker in 1893 and they lived in Cleveland.)  

Charles Glatz was born in Switzerland on June 29, 1836.  He was the founder and principal of the C. Glatz & Co., which manufactured watch cases, and he was highly involved in real estate operations.

Charles Glatz (original source unknown)

The Glatzes' new home was the scene of Elise's wedding to Harry Canfield on April 20, 1897.  The newlyweds moved to Brooklyn where their only child, Catherine Flavia, was born.

In 1904, Charles Glatz was taxed "as the possessor of personal property to the amount of $10,000," as reported by The New York Times.  Glatz protested, swearing "that all of his securities were in railroad stocks and bonds, which are exempt, as they pay taxes in other ways," explained the newspaper.  The assessment was canceled.  

The following year, the assessors, recalling the incident, did not charge Glatz any property tax.  On February 25, 1905, The New York Times reported, "President O'Donnell of the Tax Board is suffering from a severe nervous shock.  Something happened in his department yesterday the like of which he never dreamed of even in his rosiest moments."  Charles Glatz had stopped by the office to explain that he had disposed of some of his railroad stock "and now had $20,000 worth of personal property which should be taxed," said the article.  Glatz's commendable honesty cost him $300 in taxes--about $11,300 today.

Like many wealthy New Yorkers, the Glatzes sometimes spent their summer season in Europe.  That necessitated the closing of their townhouse and laying off the staff.  In such cases, employers would often attempt to help servants find positions.  On February 2, 1905, for instance, Kate Anna advertised, "A lady closing her home wishes to place a competent waitress to assist chamberwork; some time in her employ."  And an ad that appeared in the New-York Tribune on April 25, 1909 read, "A gentleman going abroad wishes a situation for his coachman, who has served him faithfully several years."

Harry Canfield died in 1909 at the age of 41 and Elise moved back to 53 West 87th Street, bringing along her daughter, Catherine.

Charles Glatz died in the West 87th Street house at the age of 83 on August 16, 1919.  His funeral was held in the drawing room on August 18.  

Kate Anna received Charles's estate, "estimated at more than $100,000," as reported by The New York Times.  (The common practice of releasing "more than" figures in reporting on estates cloaked the totals and protected the heirs' privacy.  Even at that, the $100,000 figure would translate to nearly $2 million today.)  Upon Kate Anna's death, the estate would be divided equally between Henrietta and Elise, explained the article.

On November 17, 1920, Elise announced Catherine Flavia Canfield's engagement to Leighton Elliott, who lived in Toronto.  In reporting the engagement, The New York Times noted, "During the war Mr. Elliott served as a First Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Field Artillery."  The couple was married in the Hotel Gotham on June 11, 1921.

Kate Anna Glatz died in the West 87th Street house on February 17, 1922 at the age of 80.  As had been the case with her husband, her funeral was held in the drawing room two days later.

Henrietta and Elise sold the house nine months later to real estate operator Frederick Brown.  In reporting the transaction on November 7, 1922, the New-York Tribune mentioned, "The building contains fourteen rooms and two baths."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Brown resold 53 West 87th Street three months later for $45,000 (about $850,000 today).  The New York Times reported on February 8, 1923 that the house "will be altered into a five-story apartment house with four rooms and two baths on each floor."  The unnamed buyer, however, apparently changed his mind.  On June 19, the newspaper reported that James Bocalos had purchased it "for occupancy."

The Kusche family occupied 53 West 87th Street at midcentury.  In 1955, at a time when some teenagers were seen as delinquents, the teens on the West 87th Street block turned to neighborhood improvement.  On December 4, 1955, The New York Times reported, "Eleven youngsters on West Eighty-seventh Street became gardeners yesterday morning, when seventeen London plane trees were planted on their block."  The article said the teenagers wore "shiny, new green and yellow buttons signifying their membership on the junior committee of the Eighty-seventh Street park Block Association."

"The tree planting is the first project of the two-month-old block group," said the article.  "By spring, the association hopes to have planted ten more trees."  Willie Kusche was the junior committee chairman.  He explained that each tree would be assigned to a "patrol member" who was responsible for its care.

A renovation completed in 1970 resulted in two apartments per floor.  That configuration lasted until a remodeling in 1999-2000 returned 53 West 87th Street to a single family home.  

It became home to Tony Award winning actress Judith Ivey and her husband.  Born in 1951, Ivey won the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play twice--for her 1981 role in Steaming, and her 1984 performance in Hurlyburly.  She was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for Park Your Car in Harvard Yard in 1992.  Her first film appearance was the female lead role in the 1984 The Lonely Guy.  She would go on to appear in numerous films, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Compromising Positions, and Women Talking.

In 2011, a year before Ivey would be nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the 2012 revival of The Heiress, Ivey sold 53 West 87th Street.  

Other than replacement windows, little has changed externally to the vintage house over its 135 years.

photographs by the author

The Lost William Fox House - 316 West 91st Street

This photograph of 316 West 91st Street and its mirror-image next door (left) was photographed in 1914.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Charles P. H. Gilbert (known professionally as C. P. H. Gilbert) began his career as an architect in 1886 at just 25 years old.  Within a few years his upscale residential designs were in high demand and several developers commissioned him to design sumptuous homes in the Riverside Drive district.  In 1892, C. De H. Brower hired him to design two 20-foot-wide residences at 314 and 316 West 91st Street, just steps from Riverside Drive.

Gilbert produced two mirror-image, four-story houses in the Renaissance Revival style.  Their American basement plan placed each entrance atop a three-step stoop.  (The basement entrances were nestled under the stoops.)  Above a rusticated stone base, the upper floors were clad in light-colored brick and trimmed in sandstone.  The second floor windows were flanked by shallow pilasters and capped with Renaissance-style pediments.  Openings on the third floor sat within stone architraves capped with molded cornices, and those on the top floor were fully arched.

The purchaser of No. 316, a man named Ward, leased the house to stockbroker Alfred N. Benjamin and his bride, the former Eugenie S. Joyce.  The couple were married in December 1892.  Alfred had been a Wall Street broker since 1874 and his wife was described by The New York Sun as "a belle of Baltimore."  

The couple's romance had begun unexpectedly.  In 1891, Eugenie was spending the summer at Long Branch.  Although she was a competent swimmer, she ventured too far out and was caught in the undertow.  The New York Sun said, "Mr. Benjamin went to her rescue and brought her to the shore."  

The Benjamins filled the West 91st Street house with opulent furnishings and artworks.  An inventory included 72 "paintings by American and Continental artists" including George Inness and Jules Breton.  

Jules Breton's Le Repos hung in the Benjamin house.

The inventory also included "Louis XV gold drawing room furniture," a dinner service made by Cauldon China of England that The Sun said was "made to order at great cost," and "the largest Royal Sevres vase in this country."  That vase, said The Sun, was "formerly the property of the Comtesse de Kisleff of Homburg."  

The couple, who maintained a summer home in Short Hills, New Jersey, had a young son when they moved into 316 West 91st Street. 

The Benjamins' marital bliss was short-lived.  In 1895, the couple separated and Alfred moved into the Short Hills house.  He sent $60 to his wife each month (about $2,370 in 2026).

Eugenie soon showed a bitter and vengeful side.  When she saw Alfred's advertisement for a "good laundress," she hatched a scheme.  Agnes Trainor applied for the job and was hired.  The New York Press reported, 

She remained in his employ only one day and went away after leaving his linen hanging up to dry in the yard.  The cook had to go out and bring it in, and then the discovery was made that his five white shirts had been cut and slashed, most of them having the tails cut off, and his six collars and four nightgowns also had been made unfit for wear.

A search for Agnes Trainer found her in the basement of 316 West 91st Street.  Agnes was tried, but the judge decided there was not enough evidence to convict her.  The New York Press said that Eugenie, who had "been an interested witness of the trial," warmly congratulated Agnes upon the decision.

Eugenie obtained a divorce in July 1898 and took back her maiden name.  But she was not done with Alfred.  In May 1901, she sued him for $20,000 which she claimed he had borrowed and never repaid.  She won the suit.

Alfred and Eugenie as they faced off in court in May 1901.  The World, May 15, 1901 (copyright expired)

And, yet, Eugenie was still not done.  On June 25, 1902, The Press reported, "Alfred N. Benjamin's divorced wife, Eugenie S. Joyce, who has been seeking revenge on the Wall Street broker ever since she obtained her decree in July [sic] 1898, has scored heavily against him."  The article said she recently "learned that he was depositing $30,000 a year in trust for her son."  She sued again and won.  Eugenie successfully ruined her former husband.  Two years later, on October 21, 1904, The New York Sun reported that Alfred N. Benjamin had filed for bankruptcy.

In the meantime, Eugenie left 316 West 91st Street in September 1902.  Everything in the "Colonial Mansion," as described by the auctioneer--the paintings, the made-to-order china, the "massive silver chest, containing over 200 pieces of the designer's art sterling silver tea sets, &c.," bronze and marble sculptors, and such--was sold.

The Ward estate sold 316 West 91st Street in June 1906.  It was purchased by Dr. George La Breche Smith and his wife, the former Madeline O'Neill.  The couple had three children.

Born in Ottawa, Canada in 1865, Smith studied medicine at McGill and Lavelle Universities.  In 1893 he established his practice in New York City and was by now a noted eye, ear and nose specialist.  He was attached to the Polyclinic Medical School and Hospital of New York and was a visiting surgeon at St. Vincent's Hospital.

Early in 1908, Smith became "afflicted with stomach trouble of a serious nature," as described by The New York Sun.  He died in the house on June 13, 1908.  Interestingly, his funeral was not held in the residence, but, according to the New York Herald, "from Holy Trinity Church" on 82nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

Shortly afterward, Madeline Smith left 316 West 91st Street.  She first leased the mansion in October and continued to do so until selling it in March 1914 to General E. P. Meaney and his wife, Rosalie Behr.  The price was $40,000, or about $1.3 million today.  

Meaney was the general counsel for the New York Telephone Company.  The New York Times noted that he already owned the adjoining property, saying that he "will probably improve the site at some future date."  

Instead, the Meaneys leased the house to William Fox.  Born in January 1879 in Tolcsva, Zemplén, Hungary, Fox came to America in 1880 and married Eva Leo on December 31, 1899. They had two daughters, Caroline Leah and Isabella, known as Belle.

Fox had purchased a nickelodeon in 1904 and grew that business into a chain of motion picture theaters.  Two years after moving his family into 316 West 91st Street, he shocked old time society by converting the New York Academy of Music into a movie theater.  In 1914, he formed the Fox Film Corporation and began producing his own films.

The following year Fox hired what would be Fox Film's first major star--Theda Bara.  Her role in the 1915 A Fool There Was earned her the name "The Vamp" for audiences throughout the country.

On Christmas night 1916, Colonel Louis Annin Ames and his family, who lived a block away at 622 West End Avenue, went out for dinner.  When they returned, they saw a light inside.  Ames told his family to wait outside while he investigated.  Inside, he discovered a "short, heavily-built stranger with a candle in his hand," reported The New York Times.  The intruder dropped the candle and a "furious struggle" started in the dark.  At one point they wrestled to the top of the stairs and tumbled down.  The burglar ran down the stoop and disappeared.

Police arrived and "a passerby told them that he had seen a man hiding in the basement of 316 West Ninety-first Street," said The New York Times.  The Fox household was awakened to the sounds of a frenzied struggle.  Outnumbered, John Smoley was eventually overpowered and arrested.

In 1917, Fox signed another actor who would become a household name, Tom Mix.  The cowboy actor would star in Westerns for years.  By now, William Fox had amassed  a personal fortune estimated into the millions.

Fox was living at 316 West 91st Street when this photograph was taken in 1921.  Wid's Year Book 1921 (copyright expired)

On May 17, 1923, The New York Times reported, "The wedding of Miss Carolyn Leah Fox, daughter of William Fox, motion picture producer, to Douglas Nicholas Tauzig...will take place on Sunday, May 27 at the home of the bride, 316 West Ninety-first Street."  Tauzig was president of the Tauzig-Klingenstein Company.  Belle was her sister's maid of honor.  The next day, The Times reported, "A dinner for the families followed at the home of Mr. Fox."

The Fox family would have to leave 316 West 91st Street before long.  In 1927 it and the properties at the corner of Riverside Drive and two on the drive were demolished.  In 1928 a high-rise apartment building replaced the sites.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Julius Boekell's 1876 205 Chrystie Street

photograph by Anthony Bellov

 
Born in Germany, architect Julius Boekell built his career around the designing of tenement-and-store buildings.  On April 7, 1876, he filed plans for a "five-story brick store and tenement" at the southwest corner of Chrystie and Stanton Streets.  Its construction cost developer H. Riffel $15,000, or about $465,000 in 2026 terms.

Boekell tucked the residential entrance far to the rear, at 19 Stanton Street.  Overall Italianate in design, the building was faced in red brick above cast iron storefronts.  Typical of Boekell's work, stone quoins outlined the corners.  Striking cast metal lintels blended Italianate and neo-Grec styles--the former reflected in the gently arched molded cornices with their lacy cresting, and the latter in the incised decorations underneath.  The marriage of styles returned in the terminal cornice where the corbels began with geometric neo-Grec lines before sprouting foliate Italianate scrolls.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

H. Riffel (who lived next door at 17 Stanton Street) retained ownership of the building.  It held fifteen apartments and their occupants were, expectedly, working class.  

Riffel was faced with a terrifying incident in the summer of 1879.  On August 25, he rented rooms on the second floor to a woman named Rauch.  She told him that she had two children and, according to The Sun, she "was reticent as to where she came from, but implied that she had last lived in California."

The new tenant was also unforthcoming about her family.  The Sun said she moved in with "seven children, one of whom only reaching to adult age."  (In fact, the eldest was 15.)  One of the children, the next day, implied that they had actually just arrived from Memphis.  Not coincidentally, on August 28, The Evening Post reported that five new cases of yellow fever had been reported in Memphis, Tennessee.

The day after the family moved into 19 Stanton Street, Mrs. Rauch showed symptoms of yellow fever.  The Sun said, "other tenants noticed the pungent smell of what were evidently disinfectants."  A tenant who lived on the same floor, John Sullivan, notified officials.  On August 28, Dr. Taylor of the Board of Health, "hastened to the tenement house."  The Evening Post reported, "He was informed that [the family] had come from Chicago."  When Mrs. Rauch could not remember where they lived there, the eldest daughter said they lived on Noble Street, but could not remember the address.  Mrs. Rauch explained that she was simply suffering from "a cold contracted in traveling."  Satisfied that the rumors of yellow fever were "nothing but the loose talk of the other tenants," Dr. Taylor left.

Less confident was a reporter from The Evening Post, who checked the latest Chicago directory and found no Rauches on Noble Street.  He visited the Rauch rooms and when he spoke to Mrs. Rauch in German, she talked freely, conceding that they had come from Memphis.  And The Sun reported that they, "now admitted that all their clothes and bedding had been burned before starting" for New York.

The Evening Post opined that had Dr. Taylor known the details uncovered by the reporter he, "might have delayed his report or slightly altered its tone."  The newspaper concluded, "It may...be wise to watch these new comers."  Frustratingly, newspaper coverage ended with no follow-up on the Rauch family's fate.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Julius Freeland lived here in the spring of 1894.  The 24-year-old broke into the house of attorney Thomas E Pearsall on the night of May 4, but he was unprepared for his encounter with a feisty servant.  Ellen Lyborn discovered Freeland on the second floor.  She sneaked up behind him and "caught him around the waist, held him fast and yelled at the top of her voice until help arrived," reported The Evening World.  Freeland "was handed over to the police of the Sixth avenue station," said the article.

On May 2, 1899, resident Samuel Bennett took a day trip to Coney Island.  His pleasant outing ended very badly, however.  The New York Journal and Advertiser said, "Sixty passengers on trolly car No. 855...had a thrilling experience during the storm last evening on the way from Coney Island to Manhattan."  The passengers of the "uncomfortably crowded" car would most likely have chosen a different adjective than "thrilling" to describe their ride.

The article reported that a bolt of lightning struck the trolley pole and "ran into the car.  There was a loud explosion, the fuses were burned out and the car appeared to have been set on fire in several places."  Every passenger received a "severe shock" and several were knocked to the floor.  "There was a wild scramble to get out of the car, and men knocked down and trampled upon women in the effort to reach the street."  Among those who were seriously hurt was Samuel Bennett, who suffered injuries to his chest and head.

Hard working residents living in tenement buildings almost always coexisted with criminals.  A Police Department report of "Suspected Gambling Houses" in January 1899 included the raid on a "poolroom" at 19 Stanton Street.  (Poolrooms were illegal gambling dens.)  The officers got more than they expected in this raid, however.  The report said, "One of those poolrooms is an opium joint, No. 19 Stanton street."

John Segallo lived here in 1904.  The New York Times described him as "an Italian, thirty years old."  The newspaper said he "says that he is a tailor, but the police...say he is 'connected with the Mafia.'"  Police were investigating Segallo as "having been connected with the famous barrel murder," according to The New York Times.  The "barrel murder" was the slaying of Italian immigrant Benedetto Madonia, whose slashed body was discovered stuffed in a sugar barrel on East 11th Street in the spring of 1903.  (The murder was later attributed to the Mafia gang headed by Ignazio Lupo and Giuseppe Morello.)

On June 21, 1904, The New York Times reported that Segallo "was shot twice...He was taken to the Hudson Street Hospital in a dying condition.  The article said, 

 

Through an Italian druggist, in whose place Segallo was treated, the wounded man said that he was taking a walk to get the salt air, and that he saw two Italians whom he did not know quarreling in the street.  One of them he said drew a revolver and fired two shots, both of which struck him in the abdomen.

The pharmacist's story was different from other witness accounts.  Detective McGee said that he "believed that there had been a fight between Segallo and other Italians over the division of spoils from a pocketbook taken from a newly arrived Italian immigrant."  Segallo died in the Hudson Hospital that evening.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Twenty-eight-year-old Antonio Fedele had much in common with John Segallo.  He was described by the New York Herald in 1912 as "an old member of the Lupo counterfeiting gang."  He lived here that year with his widowed mother and eight sisters.  According to the newspaper, Fedele's sisters "thought that their brother was a hard working contractor who made a good deal of money and treated them with unfailing kindness."

Fedele, indeed, made a great deal of money.  But his sisters certainly knew it did not come from working as a laborer.  He had already served two prison terms, one for counterfeiting and another for burglary.  On January 24, 1912, the New York Herald said, "His picture is in the rogues' gallery and he was arrested a few weeks ago in Passaic for trying to steal horses."

As it turned out, Fedele's involvement with the Lupo gang would not be the only thing that he and Segallo had in common.  On January 23, 1912, the New-York Tribune reported, "The body of the man found in a clump of trees in South Orange Township on Saturday morning with a stab wound in the abdomen and three shots in the head was identified tonight as that of Antonio Fedele, a Sicilian."  

Angelo Lagappato was a member of an Italian-American extortion group La Mano Nera, or the Black Hand.  The terrorist organization used violent and often deadly methods.  On April 11, 1913, the New-York Tribune reported on a massive explosion that occurred on the ground floor of a six-story tenement at 152 Mott Street.  People two blocks away were thrown to the pavement by the shock.  The article said, "The hundreds of Italians who live in the tenement above the store poured into the hallways and down the stairs, shouting and firing off their revolvers in the well known Italian style."

A few moments before the bomb went off, detectives arrested Angelo Lagappato and Gusto Corso for suspicious activity.  "Both prisoners were charged with having loaded revolvers in their possession," reported the New-York Tribune.

Construction of Chrystie Street subway connection was evidenced by barricades and decking in 1959.  Tenants used the fire escapes to dry laundry.  image via the Ne York Transit Museum

Several of the building's residents continued to be on the wrong side of the law over the coming years.  On August 5, 1959, for instance, Philip Stazzone was arrested with two others for running an illegal "policy operation," a sort of lottery that targeted low-income residents.  The New York Times reported that the trio was "doing a $50,000-a-day business."  (The amount would translate to about half a million in today's dollars.)

Changes in the neighborhood were reflected in the ground floor tenants.  Where Isey Wolowitz sold soda water in 1902, the 205 Club opened around 1995.  In its April 17 issue that year, New York Magazine described it as "a stylish, glass-fronted social club for hipsters."  

photograph by Anthony Bellov

In September 2012 Cocktail Bodega opened.  Richard Morgan of The New York Times said, "It is, plainly, a juice and smoothie place where you can get whiskey with your flaxseed."  It was a short-lived venture and by November 2013 Leave Rochelle Out of It occupied the space.  (The tongue-in-cheek name referred to a woman both owners had dated at different times.)  It was replaced by the new 205 Club.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post