A Severe Transformation - 1 West 103rd Street

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

In 1892, developer J. C. Barth completed an ambitious project -- the erection of nine "five-story brick and stone flats" on Central Park West.  Designed by Edward Wenz in the Romanesque Revival style, the buildings stretched from 103rd to 104th Street.  Seven of them faced the avenue and two opened onto the side streets.  Wenz faced the buildings in yellow Roman brick atop a striated brownstone base.  Each of the entrances sat below layered arches upheld by clustered columns.  Here, the architect used historic license by adding Renaissance inspired decorations.

Brutalized today, the former entrance originally had a glass transom.  The intricate carvings on either side once continued into the now blank upper panels.  photograph by Anthony Bellow

The southern building, 1 West 103rd Street, attracted a variety of tenants, including several theatrical figures.  Among the first was actor and manager Harry Hine, who, with his wife, were original tenants.

Two years prior to moving into 1 West 103rd Street, Hine received a windfall.  On June 6, 1890, The Times-Democrat said he "left Hallen & Hall's 'Later On' in St. Paul as soon as he heard of his good fortune and came straight to New York."  That "good fortune" was his inheriting $50,000 from Horace S. Lanfair.  The amount would translate to about $1.8 million in 2026.

The Indianapolis News called Hine, "one of the best known of the younger generation of American theatrical managers."  He would not enjoy newly found wealth, however, for long.  At the time of his inheritance, he was already showing symptoms of consumption, known today as tuberculosis.  He became ill in the fall of 1892 and died in his apartment on February 12, 1893. 

Alfred W. Barthelmess married actress Caroline Harris on September 2, 1893.  The newlyweds moved into 1 West 103rd Street where their only son, Richard Semler Barthelmess, was born on May 9, 1895.  Alfred died at the age of 34 on May 5, 1896.  Caroline not only continued her stage career, she tutored her son in the dramatic arts.  

Actress Caroline Harris and her actor son, Richard Barthelmess.  (original source unknown)

Both would go into silent films, and Richard would become a well-known silent film actor, starring opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms and Way Down East.  He would go on to co-found the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and be nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Celebrated actress Alice Fischer and her Shakespearean actor husband William Harcourt King lived here as early as 1902.  Alice was born in January 1869 and debuted on the stage in 1887.  The following year she first appeared on Broadway in the role of Minna in Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Born in 1866, King was known to audiences as William Harcourt.  He and Alice were married on May 7, 1893.

Alice Fischer suffered a frighting incident on the night of October 16, 1902.  After her performance that night, she was heading home in a carriage on Fifth Avenue when, at around midnight, a man in evening dress walked directly in front of the vehicle and was nearly run down.  The man "grabbed the bridle and began to abuse" the cabman, reported The New York Times.  When the driver "whipped up his horse to go on," the angry pedestrian pried a brick from the pavement and hurled it at the cab, breaking the side window and striking Alice's face.  He then dashed into the University Club.

The New York Times reported that Alice "drove up to the West Forty-seventh Street Station...bleeding from a severe cut on her cheek."  After reporting the incident and giving police a description of the attacker, said the article, "Miss Fischer drove away, saying she was going to a doctor to have her wound dressed."

Alice Fischer, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Alice's personal maid was Sally Pate, and their relationship had an unexpected start.  On March 29, 1899, Sally arrived from Atlanta, Georgia to audition for Williams & Walker, a minstrel company "that made a specialty of good singing and dancing," according to the New York Herald.  But her train was delayed by three hours and when she arrived at the theater, the role had already been cast.

The dejected would-be entertainer "looked about for some other theatrical engagement," said the newspaper.  Finding a position for a female Black entertainer was difficult, at the time.  Alice Fischer, who heard of her plight, realized that as much as did Sally.  The next day Sally was working for Alice Fischer as her "lady in waiting," as worded by the New York Herald. 

Now, eight years later on April 16, 1907, Sally was still living  and working for Alice and William.  That night she was married in the drawing room here to William Henry Bunn.    

The entrance to 1 West 103rd Street is at the left, on the side street.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The next morning, Alice left for Chicago on tour and, apparently, William accompanied her.  Bunn worked at the ice cream counter of a West 103rd Street pharmacy and the newlyweds had no money for a honeymoon.  The New York Herald said that Alice had given them the use of "the entire flat while the actress is in Windtown."

An interesting tenant here as early as 1905 was Ottoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish, described by the New York Herald as "the Public Instructor of Mazdaznan Philosophy in America."  Ha'nish was not only its instructor, but he was the founder of the neo-Zoroastrian religious movement.  Among its tenets were a vegetarian diet, "intestinal hygiene," and fasting.  

One of his students, Mrs. Brownie Rathbone Weaverson, took the practice too far, according to police, who arrested her on March 18, 1905 "for practising [sic] medicine and attempting to cure a gangrene leg."  In reporting the incident, the New York Herald called Ha'nish, "the head of Mrs. Weaverson's cult."

Terra cotta panels depict fearsome chimeras.  photograph by Anthony Bellov.

An advertisement in The New York Times in 1907 offered a seven-room corner apartment with bath at $75, or about $2,700 per month today.  The ad mentioned that the apartment had a "fine view."

The building was updated in July 1919.  The owner, H. S. Proctor, hired architects DeRosa & Pereira to do "improvements" that cost him the equivalent of more than $1.8 million today.  Presumably, the renovations included electricity and improved plumbing.

Tenants continued to be professional and upper-middle-class.  Among them in the 1920s was journalist Edward E. Marriott.  Born in England in 1862, he came to America as a boy.  In the 1890s, he was hired as a reporter for The New York World.  In 1918, he joined the editorial staff of the New York American.

On January 6, 1944, The New York Times reported that the nine buildings, including 1 West 103rd Street, had been purchased by Herbert H. Bachrach and Ira Rosenstock.  The article said they were "modernized into 110 apartments of small units."

The 1971 project resulted in staggering contrast in material and architectural styles. photograph by Anthony Bellov

That renovation could not compare with the changes that were completed in 1971.  Almost all of the 1892 facade was stripped away.  (By conserving sections of the exterior, the developers did not have to conform to "new building" conditions.)  The original entrances on 103rd and 104th Street were preserved--more or less--and bricked up.  Although described as a remodeling because of the various surviving elements on the side street elevations, the  term "facadism" would be more accurately applied to the project, but even then only by the most generous definition.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The Lost Henry Ammon James Mansion - 735 Park Avenue

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

British-born architect Frederick Junius Sterner arrived in New York City in 1906.  He purchased an architecturally outdated brownstone on East 19th Street and transformed it into a Mediterranean-style villa with a stuccoed facade and red tile roof.  Within five years, he had remade numerous high-stooped brownstones around the city into modern mansions for numerous wealthy patrons.  

Henry Ammon James would add his name to Sterner's client list in 1916.  On January 29, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Sterner was designing renovations to the old brownstone at the northeast corner of Park Avenue and 71st Street.  The plans included the removal of walls and stairs, "rearrange [the] roof," creation of "new areas," and installing modern "plumbing, wiring and heating."  The remodeling would cost James $25,000, or about $756,000 in 2026 terms.

The vintage four-story-and-basement house, built in the 1870s, originally faced 71st Street.  Sterner reconfigured the layout, placing the entrance on Park Avenue.  The "new areas" in his plans included extending the building to the north.  Sterner transformed the high-stooped house into a modern Elizabethan Revival-style townhouse.  Two projecting, two-story bays distinguished the Park Avenue elevation, and multi-paned, leaded windows throughout gave the house a sense of antiquity.  The otherwise symmetrical design was upset by the peaked attic level with its disparate sized gables.  It stopped short of the northern extension.

Hemry Ammon James, Yale College Class of 1874, 1870-1912 (copyright expired)

Attorney Henry Ammon James was a widower.  Born in Baltimore on April 24, 1854, he was educated by a private tutor before entering Yale.  He married Laura Brevoort Sedgwick on September 21, 1891 and they had two children, Dorothy, born in 1892, and William Ellery Sedgwick, born in 1895.  Laura died on November 1, 1907.  

In addition to his law practice, James was the president of the East Hampton Electric Light Company.  The family's country home, which Henry and Laura built the year they were married, was in East Hampton, Long Island.  

A postcard depicts the James' sprawling, shingle-style summer house.

William Ellery Sedgwick James went by Ellery.  When the family moved into the remodeled mansion, he was attending Yale University.  He and Louise R. Hoadley were engaged to be married in Southampton in June 1917, but, as was the case with hundreds of couples across the country, the war in Europe changed their plans.  On April 14, 1917, The New York Times said, "as Mr. James has joined the officers' reserve corps of Yale University the date for the wedding has been advanced."  The couple was married in St. Bartholomew's Church on April 25.

The war did not interrupt Ellery's schooling and he graduated later that year.  But shortly afterward he left his bride at home and went overseas with the American Expeditionary Force.  He would see battle in France with the 324th Field Artillery.

Sterner placed the service entrance in the northern extension, directly under the conservatory.  The American Architect, December 12, 1916 (copyright expired.

Dorothy's engagement to George Griswold Haven was announced on February 2, 1925.  It would be an extremely short engagement.  Three days later, The New York Times reported that the couple had been married the previous morning in St. George's Church.  "When Mr. and Mrs. Haven return from a wedding trip they will live at 6 East Fifth-third Street, which has been Mr. Haven's home for many years," said the article.  George G. Haven was the president of the Metropolitan Opera House Real Estate Company and the senior member of the banking form of Strong, Sturgis & Co.  Dorothy was his second wife, his first having died a few years earlier.

Thousands of diamond shaped panes composed the openings.  The American Architect, December 12, 1916 (copyright expired)

Five months later, on July 21, 1925, George and Dorothy had breakfast in their East 53rd Street mansion at 8:00.  Afterward, Dorothy left to go shopping.  An old friend, Dr. E. Eliot, stopped by unannounced at around 10:30.  The butler informed him that George was in his room.  "I'll go up and see him," responded Eliot.  He entered the bedroom to find George's body on the bed.  The New York Times reported, "He had shot himself through the jaw.  The bullet had lodged in the brain, killing him instantly."

Henry Ammon James died at the East Hampton estate on the afternoon of August 2, 1929 "after a long illness," as reported by The New York Times.  The newspaper noted that he "was a member of the University, Century, Metropolitan, Maidstone, Garden City, National Golf and Jekyll Island clubs."

James left an estate, according to The New York Times, of $2,993,392, or about $57.7 million today.  The bulk of the estate was divided, essentially, equally between Dorothy and Ellery, although Ellery received the Park Avenue mansion and its contents.

Two months later, on October 1, The New York Times reported that Ellery had purchased the abutting house at 103 East 71st Street.  The move was potentially intended to protect the mansion from developers.  But if that were the case, James changed his mind.

In August 1930, he sold the corner properties to developer Michael E. Paterno.  The New York Times reported that he intended to erect an apartment building on the site.  

William Ellery Sedgwick James died at the age of 37 on November 26, 1932.  

Seven years later, the syndicate named 737 Park Avenue Corporation had acquired the additional properties necessary to go forward with the apartment building project.  On November 25, 1939, The New York Times reported that workers "started this week to demolish six old private residences to make way for an eighteen-story apartment house which will go up on that corner."  Designed by Sylvan Bien, the replacement structure was completed in 1940.

photo by Godsfriendchuck

many thanks to Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post

The Mori Restaurant Building - 144-146 Bleecker Street

 

In 1830, Thomas E. Davis began erecting what would be fashionable homes on both sides of Bleecker Street between Thompson and Laurens Street (later West Broadway and then LaGuardia Place).  As they neared completion in 1831, he began a similar project, lining both sides of East 8th Street between Second and Third Avenues with upscale residences.  A consummate marketer, he lobbied the city to rename the two blocks, hoping to enhance their sense of exclusivity.  In 1833 his Bleecker Street block was renamed Carroll Place, and in 1835 the East 8th Street block became St. Mark's Place.

Each of the Carroll Place homes was 25-feet wide and three-and-a-half stories tall.  In February 1833, just before 146 Bleecker Street was renumbered 7 Carroll Place, an advertisement in The Evening Post offered the house for rent:

The house was erected in 1830, in the most elegant and substantial manner, and is three stories high, of brick and slated roof.  There is a building in the rear containing a tea room and library, and a well and cistern in the yard.  The house is every way calculated for a large and fashionable private family.

That house saw a relatively rapid turnover in well-to-do tenants until it was sold for $10,000 to Dr. William R. Power in January 1845.  The price, equal to about $430,000 in 2026, reflected the exclusivity of the block.

Power was born in Ireland in 1798 and was described as a "distinguished practitioner."  His wife, the former Mercy Hepburn, had recently died and his purchasing of 7 Carroll Place might have had much do to with his marital plans.  He married Aliana Diane Worthington in 1846.

Although William had no children with either of his wives, in 1857 lawyer John T. Power was listed at the address.  He was presumably a relative.

William R. Power died "after a short but severe illness," according to the New-York Daily Tribune, on September 14, 1858.  His funeral was held in the parlor on the 16th.

Aliana Power left Carroll Place shortly afterward.  An auction of the furnishings held on March 8, 1859, hinted at the high-end lifestyles of the Carroll Place residents.  Included were "rosewood parlor suits, covered in rich silk brocatel and plush...Chinese china vases, chandeliers, sideboard, morocco arm chairs," and such.

In the meantime, the house next door at 5 Carroll Street was originally home to the Henry Floyd Tallmage family.  Born in Connecticut on June 11, 1787, he and his wife, Maria Canfield Adams, had five children.   The family sold the house to Dr. John Augustine Smith on April 15, 1841.

Born in 1782, Smith had served as president of the College of William & Mary from 1814 to 1826.  (He resigned when his proposal to move the college from Richmond to Williamsburg was refused.)  Now back in New York City, he became president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1831.

Dr. John Augustine Smith, from the collection of the New York Society Library

Smith married Lettice Lee in 1809 and they had five children, at least one of whom, Richard Augustine (who went by his middle name), lived with his parents.  Augustine was in the paper business on Nassau Street.

In addition to his practice and his lecturing on anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Smith edited the Medical and Physiological Journal.  Among his works were the 1840 Select Discourse on the Functions of the Nervous System, his 1846 The Mutations of the Earth, and Moral and Physical Science, published in 1853.  Notably, he was an outspoken supporter of scientific racism, that used phrenology (the "science" of reading bumps on one's skull) to rationalize white supremacy.  He was a vocal exponent of repatriating Blacks to Africa. 

By the outbreak of the Civil War, things had changed in the neighborhood.  No longer ultra-fashionable, affluent residents left Carroll Place and in 1860 the block reverted to Bleecker Street (although both addresses would be used for some time).  In 1861, rented rooms were being offered in both 144 and 146 Bleecker Street.

In 1870, Thomas N. and William B. Doutney established an "eatinghouse," The St. Lawrence, in the basement of 144 Bleecker Street.   Unfortunately, as Thomas recalls in his 1893 autobiography Thomas N. Doutney: His Life-Struggle and Triumphs:

I listened to the bad advice of a dissolute companion, and introduced liquor on my premises, first secretly, then openly, as an article of traffic.  In short, my restaurant became, what too many restaurants already are, a drinking-saloon, a cursed rum-shop.

Thomas and his "dear, good brother William," lost the business.  The saloon was taken over by Korne & Bere.  

In the meantime, the conditions within the rented rooms of the once-luxurious mansions were ghastly.  An article in the New York Herald on February 7, 1871 described the plight of a "woman and five little children at No. 144 Bleecker street."  The journalist said, "No food or fuel has been seen in the little room which these miserable ones occupy for several days, and yesterday the mother, rendered desperate, attempted suicide."

On July 20, 1896, the New York Journal reported, "Women, some of them wives and mothers, who had been caught in the raid on the pool room [an illegal race betting den] at No. 146 Bleecker street, Saturday night, were prisoners in the Jefferson Market Court yesterday."  Prior to the time of the article, the parlor windows of the house had been replaced by bay windows, as noted in a sketch in the article.

In 1896, an illegal betting den occupied the basement of 146 Bleecker.  The elegant Federal doorway was intact, and bay windows had been added, most likely prior to 1861.  New York Journal, July 20, 1896 (copyright expired)

In 1884, a year after arriving in New York City from Florence, Italy, Placido Mori opened his "eating place" in the former Korne & Bere saloon space in 144 Bleecker Street.  The Journal described Mori & Lorenzi's cafe in 1896 as "a cheap restaurant and drinking place much frequented by the Italians of the district."

It became a meeting place for labor and political groups.  On November 24, 1891, for instance, The Evening World remarked, "The Columbus Labor Club, cloak makers...has its headquarters at present at 144 Bleecker street."  On October 27, 1898, the Third Assembly District Republicans held an "Italian parade through the Italian colony and a meeting at 144 Bleecker street," as reported by The Sun.

In November 1900, authorities refused to allow the play Senza Patria (or Without a Country), written by anarchist Pietro Gori, to open.  Throngs of angry native Italians, many of them anarchists, rebelled.  The New York Times reported, "The Anarchists then held an impromptu indignation meeting on the sidewalk, and then several hundred went to Mori & Lorenzi's café, 144 Bleecker Street, which was by common consent designated as a meeting place."

No. 144 was sold several times before Mori purchased the building in 1910.  The Italian immigrant had done well for himself.  On April 23, 1920, the New York Herald reported, "Placido Mori is the buyer of the residence at 21 Washington Square North."  It was one of the most fashionable addresses in New York City.

Among Mori's regular patrons at the time was architect Raymond Hood.  Their close owner-patron relationship would soon become owner-client.  On December 12, 1920, The New York Times reported that Placido Mori "recently bought the adjoining parcel at 146 to add to his establishment.  The article mulled, "The supporters of prohibition may discern in this fact that the prevention of serving red wine, without which no Italian restaurant meal was supposed to be complete...has not yet driven the habitués of these eating places to other resorts."

Mori hired Raymond Hood to combine the houses and remodel the exterior.  He placed a row of Doric columns along the sidewalk level and added a setback penthouse.

Famed photographer Berenice Abbott took this photograph in November 1935.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The observation made by The New York Times that Prohibition had not affected the Italian restaurant was premature.  As it turned out, Mori went on dispensing alcoholic beverages.  On September 16, 1922, the newspaper reported that Prohibition Chief John D. Appleby "sent seven general dry agents yesterday afternoon to Mori's Restaurant."

In the room in the rear of the second floor the agents seized a large quantity of liquors, wines and beer.  The agents said they never saw a more sorrowful staff of waiters than they passed in the dining room as the seized goods were carried out.  The sight of good wines leaving the restaurant, famous in the days gone by for its wine, was more than some of the waiters could stand.

Only four months later, on January 15, 1923, The New York Times reported on another raid.  After seizing 58 bottles of wine and ten bottles of whisky, Placido Mori was arrested.  The article said that police "then went upstairs to the apartment of Louis Funai...from which they took away 18 bottles of champagne, 247 bottles of wine, 15 bottles of gin, 4 bottles of kimmel [sic] and one gallon of wine."

Placido Mori died on July 18, 1927.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked that his restaurant "had become noted as a picturesque resort."

Living upstairs at the time was sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones.  He and architect Lorimer Rich were cooperatively working on designs for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington.  Jones was still living here in December 1928 when Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis announced that their design had been accepted.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Albert Mori operated the restaurant until January 1938, when he filed for bankruptcy.  The New York Times remarked, "The restaurant started as a small bar and eating place.  It expanded until it finally occupied the entire building, a rambling, old-fashioned structure."

The space became Free World House as early as 1944, operated by the International Free World Association.  On June 4, 1944, the group announced that a program of "democratic principles for Europe" would be put into effect "as soon as the Allied armies invade the continent."  A less political event had taken place a month earlier when, on May 28, The New York Times reported, "The second open show of the Village Art Center is current[ly] at Free World House...with more than a hundred oils, water-colors and drawings, by almost as many artists."

It was possibly during the occupancy of the anti-Fascist International Free World Association that five murals by Louis Quintanilla were installed.  Quintanilla arrived in New York in 1938 to create his grouping, called Love Peace Hate War.  (Somewhat ironically, he was the house guest of war correspondent Jay Allen in Placido Mori's former home on Washington Square.)  The paintings were commissioned by the Spanish Government for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1939 World's Fair.  The individual panels were Flight, Pain, Hunger, Soldiers and Destruction.

But the artwork would never be exhibited at the fair.  The Spanish Republic fell and the Fascist Francisco Franco regime demanded that the paintings be returned to Spain.  Reportedly, Quintanilla told officials that a flood in his studio had destroyed the panels.  It appears that he sold or donated the works to the Free World House.

Quintanilla's Hunger (top) and Soldiers, were two of the panels installed at Free World House.  images from The Art and World of Louis Quintanilla

The Free World House remained here until 1956, when the building was converted to the Renata Theatre in the lower two floors and apartments and offices on the top two.  As construction neared completion on November 14, 1956, The New York Times explained that the venue would present "contemporary European plays."  The auditorium would hold an audience of 250.

Among the last performances in the Renata Theatre was a one-person production, An Evening With Ethel Waters, described by The New York Times on April 9, 1959 as a "musical memory."

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Within a year, the space had been converted to a movie theater, the Bleecker Street Cinema.  It was a neighborhood fixture for decades, finally closing in August 1989.  On November 4 the following year, The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray mentioned, "It is now a gay porno house."

It was during that rather seedy period that the Quintanilla murals were "rediscovered."  On one of the panels, a black arrow reading "Exit" had been scrawled.  According to the artist's son, Paul, "In the early nineties an attempt was made to retrieve them, but the amount of money offered didn't satisfy the owner of the pornographic movie house."  The paintings, therefore, remained in abused condition until February 2, 2007 when the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain purchased them.  They were restored and now hang at the university. 

The ground floor space became the Elbow Room around 1997.  Offering live music, it remained into the 2000s.  A renovation to the storied building in 2011 resulted in retail space on the ground floor and apartments above.

photographs by the author

The Arthur and Anna Eisemann House - 212 East 31st Street

 

photograph by the author

A long row of modest houses on the south side of East 31st Street between Second and Third Avenues was completed around 1867.  Above rusticated brownstone basements, their upper three stories were faced in red brick.  At 20-feet wide, their stripped-down take on the popular Italianate style included a surprising vermiculated band below the parlor level (an unnecessary cost to the builder), floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, and individual bracketed cornices.

No. 212 East 31st Street was apparently leased, initially.  Adolphus Sinsheimer, an "agent," and his family lived here from 1868 to 1869, followed by Abraham Levy.  The clothier had two shops on the Bowery.  He and his family remained through 1874.

The residence next became a boarding house.  The small number of tenants reflected its high-end status.  Living here in 1876 were Edward S. Dex, Bartholomew and Felix Smith, and Catharine A. McLean, none of whom listed professions.  Catharine was the widow of Laughlin McLean, and it was possibly she who placed an advertisement in the New York Herald in March that year:

A young lady will give instruction on piano for $10 per quarter, with privilege of practice daily.  212 East 31st st.

The advertisements appeared routinely through 1879.  Bartholomew and Felix Smith were listed at the address through 1880.

Alice J. Bolmer, a widow, purchased 212 East 31st Street in August 1882, but she did not retain possession for long.  She placed an advertisement in the New York Herald on July 8, 1885:

A great sacrifice will be made if sold at once; must be sold, as the owner is going West; three story high stoop, all improvements, 20x45x100, 212 East 31st st.; this house is the most perfect home in the city; do not fail to examine at once.

Alice Bolmer sold the house to Jacob and Margaret Sauter for $13,000--about $438,000 in 2026.  It appears that the couple operated it again as a boarding house.  Among their boarders in 1886 was Mary Leonard, who abruptly moved out in September.  Soon afterward, men arrived at 212 East 31st Street to repossess a large amount of furniture.

Calling her "quite a business woman," the New York Herald explained on November 22, 1886 that Mary Leonard "at various times called herself Fanny Walsh, Duane, Stanley, Kelly and Lee, and that a large number of furniture dealers have made her acquaintance at considerable loss to themselves."

Mary Leonard had gone to several furniture dealers, telling them "she was honest, and had to have furniture because she was trying to support her four fatherless children by starting a boarding house."  She managed to purchase $190 worth of furniture from Thoesen & Uhl, a piano worth the same amount from Samuel Parsons, and $200 worth of furniture from George Reubel.  She had placed small amounts of money on credit and had the goods shipped to 212 East 31st Street.  She then waited on the sidewalk and when the deliverymen arrived, redirected them to an alternate address.  She was long gone before the dealers began looking for the unpaid goods.

Jacob Sauter died in 1887 and Margaret tried to hold on to the property, taking out a second mortgage in 1888.  She was not successful and the house was sold at auction on June 20, 1890 for $12,650.  It was sold again in 1892 to Lisette and Adolph Starke, who resold it in 1897 to Mary J. Mitchell.

The house finally returned to a single-family home in May 1903 when Martin L. Campbell purchased it from Mary Mitchell.  Campbell was a civil servant, working as a "tapper" in the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity.  

In the spring of 1909, a proposal was bandied about to change the title of "assistant tapper" to simply "tapper."  Campbell was not entirely on board with the move, and in April he and Thomas F. McCormick sent a letter to the department.  It pointed out that they were "the only persons registered as Tappers in the Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx," and, while they did not oppose the change, "they would like to be protected in their higher position by a title such as Superintendent, Supervising or Foreman Topper, etc."  (It is unclear whether the proposal was accepted.)

In 1940, the rustication of the basement and its vermiculated band, along with the original floor-to-ceiling parlor windows survived.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Campbell remained at 212 East 31st Street until 1912, when he sold the house that December to Anna and Arthur Eisemann.  A graduate of Cooper Union, Arthur was an architect and independent contractor.  He and Anna had two daughters, Alma and Bertha.

His work drew important clients.  On September 17, 1921, for instance, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. had commissioned him to make "alterations" to the four-story residence at 24 West 54th Street.  Eisemann was, as well, the president of the Society of Painting and Decorative Trades.

Anna Eisemann died on May 27, 1927.  Arthur moved permanently to Elmhurst, New York and the East 31st Street house was rented by Anna's estate.  Her will directed, "Income from the property at 212 East Thirty-first street, Manhattan, is to be divided among the children equally."

The house was converted to apartments in 1946.  A subsequent renovation completed in 1959 resulted in a duplex in the basement and parlor level, one apartment on the second floor and two on the third.  During one of those renovations, the rustication and vermiculated band of the basement were erased and the parlor windows shortened.

The Francis G. Lloyd House - 157 East 71st Street

 

The contracting firm of Breen & Mason was composed of James R. Breen and Alfred G. Mason.  In 1881, they acquired the 40-foot-wide wooden structure at 155-157 East 71st Street.  The partners acted as their own architects for this project, designing two four-story-and-basement, neo-Grec-style homes on the property.  Completed in December 1881, the high-stooped brownstones were distinguished by the windows, which sat within shallow architraves atop paneled spandrels and capped with prominent cornices.

The James R. Breene family moved into 157 East 71st Street just in time for a wedding.  On December 8, 1881, the New-York Tribune reported, "James R. Breene's daughter, Ariana A., was married yesterday at 7 p.m. in her father's house, No. 157 East Seventy-first-st., to John H. Bellamy."  

By 1890, Charles Brenneman and his family occupied the house.  He and his wife, Elizabeth, had a daughter, Emma.  On February 3, 1903, Emma's engagement to William Thomas Fritte was announced.  Four weeks earlier, on January 25, The New York Times reported that Brenneman had sold 155 and 157 East 71st Street.

The buyer, Dr. Andrew J. McCosh, resold 157 East 71st Street to Otto and Carrie Strack in the spring of 1904.  The couple's residency would be short-lived and tragic.  The family had not fully settled in when, on May 18, 1904, five-year-old Walker Strack died in the house.

A year later, on June 22, 1905, The New York Times reported that Otto Strack had sold the house to John L. Martin.  His ownership, too, would be short.  

Frank Guerin Lloyd purchased 155 and 157 East 71st Street in March 1907.  In October, he commissioned the architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston to update the residences.  No. 155 would be used as rental income and 157 East 71st Street would become the Lloyds' home. 

The architects' plans for 157 East 71st Street included new plumbing, windows and a "one-story partition."  The New-York Tribune said that the "making over" of the house would transform it "into an American basement dwelling house."  The plans included "remodeling the interior."  American basement houses differed from English basement houses in their lack of stoops.  While Trowbridge & Livingston left the upper floors untouched, the entrance was now slightly below grade.  Now fronting the second floor, or piano nobile, was a trio of French windows fronted by an iron railing.  The renovations, completed in April 1908, cost Lloyd $15,000, or about $517,000 in 2026.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Francis Guerin Lloyd was born in New Jersey in 1848.  He married Matilda Hedenberg Herbert on August 9, 1875.  The couple had two surviving children. (Two others had died in childhood.)

Lloyd was hired by Brooks Brothers, the men's clothing firm, when he was 14 years old.  He worked his way up, and in 1879 was made a partner.  Upon the death of John E. Brooks in 1896, Lloyd became senior partner.  By the time he purchased 157 East 71st Street, he was president of Brooks Brothers.  The family's country home was in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Moving into the house with the Lloyds was their daughter-in-law, Julia A. Trowbridge Lloyd.  Daniel Herbert Lloyd died in 1907, a year after the couple's marriage.  According to the New-York Tribune, when Julia's father, who was a physician, died, he "left his daughters independent fortunes."  Additionally, said the newspaper, Daniel Lloyd, "left a large estate."  Julia maintained her own country home, Driftwood, in Noroton, Connecticut.

Near Driftwood was the summer home of Thomas Crimmins, son of millionaire John D. Crimmins.  The properties were, apparently, close enough for a romance to blossom.  On February 12, 1910, the New-York Tribune reported that the pair had been quietly married in Augusta, Georgia.

Now sharing the house with Francis and Matilda were James Henry McKinley, a "well known tenor and teacher of singing," and his wife, the former Laura Celestine Fiske.  The relationship between the two families is unclear, but they would live together in the East 71st Street house for years.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the Lloyds did not routinely entertain.  An exception came on April 3, 1915.  Matilda's niece, Emilie Mathilde Roe, was married to Duncan MacIntosh Hay in St. Thomas's Church that day.  The New York Times reported that the ceremony was "followed by a breakfast at the home of Mrs. Francis G. Lloyd, 157 East Seventy-first Street."

On the morning of October 6, 1920, Francis Lloyd left the house, heading to his office.  On the way, the 72-year-old suffered a fatal heart attack.  

Matilda H. Lloyd moved permanently to the Bernardsville estate where she died on October 25, 1945.  The McKinleys remained at 157 East 71st Street.  Laura's uncle, Alexander P. Fiske, moved in with the couple.  He died at the age of 89 on May 30, 1922 and his funeral was held in the parlor the following day.

On August 18, 1928, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that James and Laura McKinley had purchased a brownstone at 626 West End Avenue.  The article mentioned that they had "resided at 157 West 71st St. for the past 25 years."

When the house was sold in August 1941, The New York Times reported that the buyer, Inez C. Robb, president of the Callaway Holding Corporation, had hired architect John S. Burrell to covert "the old residence into a modern apartment building for ten families."

The renovation resulted in two apartments per floor.  Among the residents was the building's owner, Inez C. Robb.  An advertisement in The New York Sun on March 13, 1942 described the one-room, kitchen and bath apartment 2-E saying, "Decorator will lease beautifully furnished, comfortable, large living-bedroom.  Full-sized kitchen, bath, wood burning fireplace.  Fully equipped."

Robb sold the building in September 1956.  It was updated in 1982, while preserving the configuration of two apartments per floor.

Then, in September 2000, Todd Romano Antiques & Decorations opened in the ground floor.  The New York Times said it, "offers furnishings from 18th-century French to 1970's Lucite, with upholstered pieces of his design."  Romano later moved his operation to East 59th Street.

On the exterior, little has changed to 157 East 71st Street since Trowbridge & Livingston remodeled it nearly 120 years ago.

photographs by the author

The Arnet Seaman House - 51 Charles Street

 

photograph by the author

Sir Peter Warren's country estate engulfed 300 acres in the 18th century.  By the time Abraham Van Nest died in the former Warren house, known as "The Manse," in 1864, the mansion sat within just a single city block, bounded by Bleecker, Charles, Perry and West Fourth Streets.

Developers quickly swooped in.  The Van Nest block was leveled, building lots plotted, and houses erected.  Oddly, in a nod to the respected Van Nest family, the northern side of Charles Street between West Fourth and Bleecker Streets was named Van Nest Place.  (Adding to the confusion of only the northern side of the block being so named, it was routinely spelled Vannest, Vanness or Van Ness Place.)

In 1866, George Starr began construction of a brick-faced mansion at the northwest corner of West Fourth Street and Van Nest Place.  Completed in 1867, the Italianate-style home was three bays wide and three stories tall above a brownstone basement.  A stone stoop rose to the parlor floor where, most likely, a cast iron balcony fronted the floor-to-ceiling windows.  The elliptically arched openings originally wore molded eyebrows and the doorway would have been impressive--adorned with scrolled brackets and a pediment or similar treatment.

Arnet Seaman and his wife, the former Mary Anna Rhodes Riffey, purchased 1 Van Nest Place.  Arnet, who operated a brick business, was born in 1814 and Mary in 1821.  The couple had surviving children: John Henry and Ambrose.  A daughter, Jenny, had died in childhood and the eldest son, William A., had died at the age of 24 in 1866--the year before his parents bought the Van Nest Place.  The family maintained a country home in Tarrytown, New York.

Even affluent families leased unneeded space in their homes and shortly after moving in, on February 22, 1867, the Seamans advertised:

A very pleasant room and bedroom to let, separately or together, to gentlemen or gentleman and wife, with Board; house new, with every convenience.

"Every convenience" in 1867 would have included gas lighting and indoor plumbing.

By 1873, John Henry, who was now 24 years old, had joined his father's business.  It had expanded and now offered "masons' building materials" with at least two locations.

The Real Estate Record, March 13, 1880 (copyright expired)

Ambrose, most likely, would have joined them.  But on August 31, 1875, the 19-year-old died "suddenly," as worded by the New York Herald.  The term implied an accident.  Ambrose's funeral was held in the parlor, and his body interred at Tarrytown.

Arnet and Mary Seaman moved permanently to Tarrytown around 1887.  When he died there on October 23, 1893, the New-York Tribune remarked, "His estate is estimated at $500,000."  The figure would translate to about $18 million in 2026.

No. 1 Van Nest Place became home to the family of Alderman John Cavanagh.  His wife and young adult children were terrified by an incident that took place on the night of December 18, 1888 while Cavanagh was not home.

At around 8:30, a man climbed the stoop and "rang the door-bell repeatedly," as reported by The Evening Post.  Mrs. Cavanagh looked out of a window and did not recognize the stranger.  "He shouted to her to open the door, and when she ordered him to leave, he used bad language and kicked at the door," said the article.

He then descended the stoop and went to the basement door, kicking it so hard that one of the panels caved in.  As he was doing so, the Cavanagh's daughter hurried down the stoop to find a policeman.  She was seen, however.  The intruder ordered her to stop and chased after her.  The terrified girl ran into Policeman Nash at Perry and Greenwich Streets, who arrested Oscar Hatfield.  At the station house he asserted that he was "the United States Consul at Batavia, Java."

The next morning Hatfield told the court that he was very sorry, saying that "he drank three bottles of porter [ale] yesterday afternoon, and did not have the slightest recollection of what he did last evening."  The Cavanagh's son told the judge "that his mother was ill at home from the fright she received last night."  Hatfield was jailed for a month.  

The Cavanagh family left in 1883, and on October 16 that year, The World reported, "The new club-house of the recently organized United States Navy Club, at No. 1 Van Nest place, was thronged yesterday with blue-jackets who are on shore leave, and who are keen to appreciate the social advantage offered by the new organization."

The United States Navy Club, said the article, was the only club for enlisted men in the country.  It said, "The club-house is a four-story brick high-stoop house, and it is well furnished throughout."  Calling it "a handsome house," the New York Herald said it was "right in the heart of the 'old Greenwich village.'"  It explained that in addition to club activities, the house would be the "residence and home for enlisted men serving on board ships of the United States Navy."

It would be a short-lived venture here.  By March 1894, the club had rented and moved into a house on Sands Street in Brooklyn.  

No. 1 Van Nest Place was leased that year and again in 1897.  The latest lessee, W. D. Phillips, rented it as an income property.  His first tenant was Frank Rosevelt Starr.

Born in 1866, Starr was in the real estate brokerage business with his brother, Edward Seaman Starr.  Despite his relatively young age, Frank Starr was suffering from rheumatism and was being treated by a Dr. Ormsby.

On April 7, 1897, the doctor visited the house.  He found Starr's bedroom "full of gas and the man dead," as reported by the New York Journal and Advertiser.  The newspaper titled the article, "Gas Ends a Broker's Life."  His funeral was held in the parlor on April 9.

Starr was followed in the house by the family of Frank Williams.  The family's country home was in Richmond, Maine.  Their affluence was reflected in the wedding of their only daughter, Florence Irene, to I. Latimer Lawrence in the First Presbyterian Church on January 15, 1902.  The New York Times reported, "Over 500 guests were invited."

The property was sold at auction in November 17, 1912.  The announcement in The Sun described it as, "N.W. Cor. West 4th & Charles Sts. (Known as 1 Van Nest Place)" for sale.  It detailed it as "a 3 story and basement brick and brownstone private dwelling containing 10 rooms, 1 bath and 2 toilets."  In reporting on the sale, The New York Times commented on the confusing address, saying that the city had already given up on Van Nest Place:

The name still remains in the city directory among the list of streets, but it has been discarded by the city officials and the Tax Department, instead of recognizing the row of old-fashioned homes on the north side of Charles Street as 1 to 18 Van Nest Place, acknowledges their existence for taxable purposes as 55 to 89 Charles Street.

The owners and residents of 1 Van Nest Place, however, continued to use that address.  When Elena E. Goodale sold it to William E. Mullholland in November 21, it was still described as a "three-story dwelling."  But within two years, it had been converted to unofficial apartments.  An advertisement in The New York Times on October 5, 1923 offered three apartments.  One of them was described as "2 rooms and bath, studio, all improvements, private street entrance."  (Two entrances were carved into the West Fourth Street side.)  The two others were described: "5 rooms and bath, housekeeping and non-housekeeping; housekeeping suitable for doctor or dentist."  The term, "housekeeping," meant the apartment had a kitchen.

A subsequent alteration in 1933 removed the stoop and lowered the front entrance, now with a Greek Revival inspired frame, to below grade.  There were now four floor-through apartments in the building.

The original high stoop and entrance details of 1 Van Nest Place would have been similar to others further down the block.  The New York Times June 7, 1936

Finally, after the grumbling of local residents, letter carriers and delivery men, and the city's indifference to the name, on June 7, 1936, The New York Times reported, "The nomenclature Van Next Place will be eliminated; Charles Street incorporating same."  The corner structure was renumbered 51 Charles Street.

Among the more colorful tenants over the subsequent decades was Marion Abt Bachrach.  Starting in 1947, she was the public relations director of the Communist Party of the United States.  Like most visible Communist Party members, she was a target of the Government's campaign known commonly as the Red Scare.  In 1951, she was indicted with 20 other "second-string" Communist leaders.  However, when it was revealed that she was suffering from cancer, her trial was canceled.  

Marion Abt Bachrach's 1951 FBI mugshot.

When Marion Abt Bachrach did not die, Congress appointed a physician to examine her.  In 1955, he deemed her condition "satisfactory" to stand trial, although, according to The New York Times, "others disagreed."  She was tried in Federal Court in New York City on "charges of conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence."  Perhaps surprisingly, she was acquitted in 1956.  She was still living at 51 Charles Street on October 17, 1957 when she succumbed to cancer in the Manhattan General Hospital at the age of 57.

Bachrach's landlord had been Norma Starobin.  After owning and living in 51 Charles Street "for many years," according to The New York Times, she sold it in August 1967 for $90,000--about $845,000 today.

Although the stoop was gone, the window lintels survived in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As some point after 1940, the details of the windows were shaved off.  Otherwise, little has changed outwardly to 51 Charles Street since the 1938 conversion.