The Lost Louis Ohlman House - 130 East 83rd Street

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trow's Business Directory 1898 (copyright expired)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

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

The 1830 Frederick Pattillow House -- 355 Bleecker Street

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photographs by the author

Emery Roth's 1909 The Whitestone - 45 Tiemann Place

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

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

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

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

photograph by Anthony Bellov

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

photograph by Anthony Bellov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Billboard, September 17, 1927 (copyright expired)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photograph by Anthony Bellov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photograph by Anthony Bellov

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

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

Sloan & Robertson's 1930 895 Park Avenue

In 1923, John Sloan and Thomas Markoe Robertson partnered to form the architectural firm of Sloan & Robertson.  Specializing in Art Deco-style office and civic buildings, they stepped out of their comfort zone in 1929 by designing a luxury apartment building.  The project could not technically be called a commission, since the developer of the site, the 895 Park Avenue Co., was organized by Sloan and Robertson.  John Sloan was its president and Thomas Markoe Robertson was one of the only two other officers.

Demolition of the ten residences at the southeast corner of Park Avenue and 79th Street began on October 1, 1929.  Two weeks earlier, John Sloan told reporters,

There will be thirty-five apartments of the simplex, duplex and triplex types.  The Park Avenue corner location on the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth floors will be devoted to a special triplex apartment opening to roof garden terraces on all sides, and the nineteenth and penthouse floors will contain two duplex apartments of twelve and fourteen rooms respectively.

Prefabricated concrete panels resulted in rapid construction--each concrete floor taking only a day to install.  The American Architect, July 1930 (copyright expired)

Sloan described the design as "of dignified but modern character.  Facades will be of natural stone to the fourth story, with brick and natural stone for the remainder."  Completed in 1930, Sloan & Robertson's design has been called "Classicizing Art Deco," with The New York Times explaining on December 29, 1929, "In design it will be a modern adaption of classical motifs."

The Skyscraper Times pointed out on September 23, 1929, that the 19-story-and-penthouse building would be "100 per cent co-operative."  The article described the typical, 14-room corner duplexes, saying they...

comprise living room, dining room, library, 5 master's chambers, with dressing rooms, extra dressing room and lavatory adjoining the foyer, 6 baths, 4 servants' rooms, servants' hall and kitchen.

The 15-room duplex apartments included seven baths and a conservatory.  Amenities included, "electric refrigeration, large ranges, exceptionally large servants' quarters, cedar closets, and wood-burning fireplaces."  Ceiling heights in the bedrooms were 10 feet and in the living rooms 12 feet.  Residents would enjoy communal amenities like "a squash court, gymnasium and locker rooms in the basement."

As construction progressed, on December 1, 1929, an advertisement in Town & Country was titled, "The Luxury of Venetian Palaces Brought to Park Avenue."  Prices for the 10- to 15-room apartments ranged from $26,000 to $169,000, according to the ad.  The figures would translate to $476,000 and $3 million today.

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

Costing $5 million to construct (nearly $94 million in 2026), 895 Park Avenue was completed in 1930.  The New York Sun described the building as "an imposing and brilliant mass of architecture."  Sloan & Robertson incorporated "classic" elements into their Art Deco design.  Fluted piers that echoed classical pilasters ran the height of the nine-story midsection.  More in keeping with the Art Deco style were the sculptural panels and reverse stair-stepping balconies on the upper floors.

 
Unfortunately, the Stock Market crashed shortly after construction had begun.  The syndicate quickly changed course and offered the apartments as rentals.  But it was too late.  On August 5, 1931, The New York Times reported that 895 Park Avenue had been sold in foreclosure for $1 million.  Nevertheless, said the article, "many of its suites have been taken."

Art Deco panels decorate the facade high above the street. 

Not surprisingly, among the initial residents were John Sloan and T. Markoe Robertson and their families.  Both were staggeringly wealthy and socially visible.  On August 14, 1931, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, "Mrs. John Sloan of 895 Park avenue entertained at luncheon at the Casino, Central Park, for her guest, Mrs. Marion Bedell of Bermuda."  Two months later, on October 20, the New York Evening Post announced, "The Misses Ruth and Evelyn Sloan, the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. John Sloan...are sailing Saturday, October 31, for Bermuda, to remain until just before the Christmas holiday."

Thomas Markoe Robertson (who went by his first initial) was the son of well-known architect Robert Henderson Robertson.  His wife was Cordelia Drexel Biddle, the former wife of tobacco mogul Angier Buchanan Duke.  She and Duke had divorced in 1921.  Living with the couple were Cordelia's sons, Angier Biddle Duke and Anthony Drexel Duke.  The family maintained a country home in Westbury, Long Island.

Angier married Priscilla Saint George on January 2, 1936 in St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Tuxedo Park.  It was a socially important affair, with New York's premier surnames within the church and at the reception held in the Saint Georges' cottage.  The newlyweds moved into a suite in 895 Park Avenue.

On November 7, 1942, the North Carolina newspaper The Pilot reported, "Mr. and Mrs. T. Markoe Robertson, frequent Pinehurst guests of the Livingston Biddles, entertained recently at dinner at their New York home, 895 Park avenue, for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  The dinner was followed by a theater party."

Paul Ernst Thalmann and his wife, the former Regina Marie Chester, leased a 13-room, six-bath apartment in June 1932.  The New York Times noted, "The apartment has terraces and occupies the sixteenth and seventeenth floors."  Thalmann was associated with the banking firm Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., co-founded by his father.  He was, as well, president of the General Fuel Briquette Corporation and of the Smelters Corporation, and a vice president of the Industrial Supply Company and a director of the Florence Iron Company.  Upon his father's death in 1912, Thalmann received a life income from $1.5 million--more than $50 million today.

The multi-millionaire would not enjoy the sprawling apartment for long.  Eight months after moving in, Paul Ernst Thalmann fell ill.  Within the week, he died in the apartment at the age of 37.  His will, no doubt, raised several eyebrows.  On August 8, 1934, The New York Times reported that Regina would receive "half the estate in trust."  Thalmann's secretary, Grace Howard, was left a $70,000 trust fund (about $1.64 million today).  The article said she, "rejected the bequest and elected to take half the residuary estate outright."

Regina Thalmann remained in the apartment.  Her personal fortune was enhanced in November 1935 when the will of Anna Thalmann, Paul's mother, left her more than $4.5 million in today's money "and articles of jewelry."

Society columnist closely followed the movements of well-to-do New Yorkers.  And so, the Robert Schey family routinely appeared in the social sections of newspapers.  On April 13, 1933, The New York Sun reported, for instance, "Mrs. Robert Schey and her daughter, Miss Theresa Schey, a student at Spence School, have returned to 895 Park avenue from East Hampton."  And on August 9, 1935, The New York Evening Post noted, "Mrs. Robert Schey and her daughter Teresa...who have been at a ranch in Wyoming since June, have returned and will pass the remainder of the season at East Hampton, where they have taken a house."

Born in Vienna in 1877, Robert Paul Schey studied art and design in Europe.  He came to America in 1896 and in 1907 opened his textile designing firm.  He and his wife, the former Laura Todd, were married in 1918 and they had one daughter, Theresa Todd.  By the time the family moved into 895 Park Avenue, Schey's firm had branches in London and Paris.

After graduating from the Spence School, Theresa entered the Foxcroft School in Virginia.  On December 9, 1937, the East Hampton newspaper The Star reported that they Scheys "gave a large supper dance Saturday evening at the Pierre...in honor of their debutante daughter, Theresa Todd Schey."  This was the second entertainment in Theresa's debut.  Her parents had earlier hosted a tea in the apartment "for the older friends of the family."

A photographer snapped Theresa Schey and Rulon Neilson as they arrived at the Stork Club.  The New York Sun, July 5, 1939.

Among the Scheys' neighbors in the building was cosmetic tycoon Helena Rubinstein.  Born in Poland in 1872, Rubinstein and her husband moved to New York City at the outbreak of World War I and she opened a cosmetics salon.  In 1928, a few years before moving into 895 Park Avenue, she sold the business to Lehman Brothers for $7.3 million ($134 million today).  Her apartment here held her astounding collection of miniature Chippendale furniture.

Helena Rubinstein, from the collection of the Library of Congress

The families of brothers Ralph Isidor Straus and Percy Selden Straus had apartments here as early as 1938.  Their parents were Percy Selden Straus Sr., head of the R. H. Macy Department Store, and Edith Abraham Straus.  Edith was the daughter of Rose and Abraham Abraham, founder of the Abraham & Straus department store.  Ralph, who was born in 1903, was married to Matilda Bradford Day; and Percy, who was born in 1906 and changed his name to Percy Seldon, married Marjorie Jester in 1937.

Sloan's and Robertson's vision of 895 Park Avenue as a cooperative came to pass in 1952.  The tenants formed the Cooperative Apartment Corporation and took title to the property.

An interesting resident at the time was Laura Talmage Huyck.  Born Laura Van Nest Talmage in Brooklyn on June 21, 1875, she married felt manufacturer Francis Conkling Huyck in 1899.  In the 1920s, she and her daughter and son-in-law founded the Institute on Man and Science (later the Rensselaerville Institute) at their country home in Rensselaerville, New York.  In the 1930s, at the age of 56, she began painting.  Her work was exhibited in the Durand Ruel Gallery in 1932, the director describing her paintings as "extraordinary mystical landscapes."  And then she disappeared from art circles.  

Laura's husband died in 1938, and she had continued painting, but only for her own pleasure.  On June 5, 1955, The New York Times started an article saying, "An artist, who was 'discovered' in 1932...and rediscovered only recently, is to have a retrospective show of her paintings."  Huyck, who was fast approaching her 80th birthday, had been approached by Betty Parsons of the Betty Parsons Gallery at 15 East 57th Street with the idea.  

Laura Talmadge Huyck in her apartment here with one of her landscapes behind her.  The New York Times June 5, 1955

"The doing is what has been important," she told Sanka Knox of The New York Times.  When Knox mentioned that she resembled Whistler's mother, in the famous portrait, Huyck responded, "Whistler's mother was a little resigned; I've never been resigned."

Three years after that article, on June 24, 1958, Laura Talmadge Huyck died in her Park Avenue apartment at the age of 83.

The Robertsons were still occupying their apartment more than three decades after the building opened.  On April 18, 1962, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. T. Markoe Robertson will give a cocktail party in her home at 895 Park Avenue today.  The guests were committee members for the Musicians Emergency Fund.  The article noted, "Her guest of honor will be Phyllis Curtin, Metropolitan Opera soprano."

Less than three months later, on August 3, the newspaper reported that Thomas Markoe Robertson had suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 84.

Cordelia Biddle Duke Robertson was assuredly well-acquainted with the Leonard Bernsteins, who moved into an apartment in 1964.  A 1939 graduate of Harvard, he next studied at the Curtis Institute of Music.  The composer-conductor married Felicia Montealegre in 1951.  By the time they moved into 895 Park Avenue, Bernstein had composed the score for Wonderful Town, the operetta-style musical Candide, and the musical West Side Story.

The Bernsteins in the 895 Park Avenue penthouse. photo by Don Hogan Charles, The New York Times, October 1965.

The Bernsteins were highly involved in humanitarian and civil issues.  Felicia was the chairman of the women's committee of the New York Civil Liberties Union.  Among their first entertainments here was a birthday party for Roger N. Baldwin, chairman of the International League for the Rights of Man.

The Bernsteins remained here until 1974 when they moved into the Dakota.

Anthony Drexel Duke still lived here in 1967 when his son, Anthony Jr. was married to Barbara Briggs Foshay in St. James's Episcopal Church.  Duke Sr. had founded and was head of Boys Harbor, an interracial camp in East Hampton for indigent boys from New York.  He was separated from his fourth wife, Maria de Lourdes Alcebo, when he died at the age of 95 on May 1, 2014.  In reporting his death, The New York Times called him, "a scion of three of America's wealthiest families."

Thomas L. Kempner was the vice president of the brokerage house Loeb Rhoades & Co.  He and Nan Field Schlesinger were married in 1952.  They had three children and owned a 10-room apartment here and maintained a country home in Purchase, New York.  Nan was described by The New York Times as "a fashion leader who is often seen at charity balls and benefit performances."

In 1975, the family had a house guest, Countess Angelica Lazansky, who was visiting from Paris.  On November 21, the Kempners' maid had the day off.  Late that afternoon the family returned home "with some guests to have cocktails," according to The New York Times.  The cocktail party disintegrated when someone noticed that the rear fire door had been forced open.  The Kempners found $1.8 million in jewelry missing.  (The figure would translate to $10.5 million today.)  Detectives said "it was one of the largest jewelry thefts ever reported in the city."

As it turned out, the 31-year-old maid had spent the afternoon of her day off selecting items of Nan's and Angelica's jewelry.  She had been seduced by a man who promised her $17,000 in cash for the jewels.  Prompted either by guilt or fear of being caught, at 2:30 on the afternoon of December 3, the maid entered Kempner's Wall Street office with "two boxes and a shopping bag containing jewels," according to police.  She and her accomplice were arrested.

The Bernstein penthouse living room as it appeared during the Feinbergs' residency.  photo by Warburg Realty.

Art collectors and philanthropists Carol and Maurice Feinberg purchased the former Bernstein penthouse in 1974.  Maurice died in 2002 and Carol in 2019.  In November that year the Feinbergs' children offered it for sale.  In describing the apartment, Vivian Marino of The New York Times said, "Many of the apartment's original architectural details remain, including the wide-plank mahogany floors, crown moldings and carved-wood fireplace mentals."

Among the fine Park Avenue apartment houses built in the 1920s, this one stands out for its unique architecture.

photographs by the author

Michael Bernstein's 1900 330 East 4th Street

photograph by Carole Teller

The neighborhood of East 4th Street between Avenues C and D in the first half of the 19th century earned the name the Dry Dock District for the shipbuilding industry centered along the East River from about Grand Street to East 12th Street.  In the late 1830s, the 4th Street block was lined with handsome Greek Revival homes.

As the century drew to a close, however, those once private residences were being converted to rooming houses or razed to be replaced with tenements.  The 22-foot-wide house at 330 East 4th Street was purchased by developer John Katzman in 1899.  He hired architect Michael Bernstein to design a tenement building on the site.  Completed the following year, the structure cost Katzman $20,000 to erect, or about $771,000 in 2026 terms.

Michael Bernstein was well-known to developers for his tenement designs--often blending incongruous historical styles with conspicuous results.  (Tenement buildings designs, in general, were often over the top, their facades splashed with extravagant ornamentation that disguised the bare bones accommodations inside.)  

The five-story structure was faced in yellow brick and trimmed in stone.  Whimsical wrought iron railings that protected the areaway and and stoop led to the tall entrance.  The doorway frame and the arched first-floor window lintels were intricately carved with Renaissance Revival-style designs.

The first floor openings were originally adorned with Renaissance inspired carvings (painted in 1940).  Light-hearted hand-wrought ironwork ran along the stoop and areaway.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Bernstein blended several styles for the upper floors--triangular Renaissance pediments, Queen Anne-style spandrels of dog-tooth brickwork, and neo-Classical swags along the fascia below the cornice.

No. 330 East 4th Street was a double-flat, meaning there were two apartments per floor.  The ten original tenants were middle class, like the Weiner family, whose young adult son was looking for work in 1901.  His advertisement in the New-York Tribune on April 4 read:  "Young Man, 22, of neat appearance, with 3 years' experience as office salesman, where there is chance of advancement.  J. Weiner, 330 East 4th-st."

The unmarried Susie Hachfelder exemplified the progressive young females of the early 20th century.  Even though women did not yet have the right to vote, Hachfelder was highly involved in politics.  She was a member of the Progressive Party and on September 3, 1912, The New York Times reported that she would be attending the Progressive Party Convention in Syracuse.

Gynecologist Dr. Herman Lorber's apartment and medical office was in the building as early as 1913.  Born in Austria in 1880, he was educated at the Gymnasium in Austria and at City College.  He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1903 and did graduate work in Vienna and Berlin.  (Lillian Wald, of the Henry Street Settlement house, "loaned him money to get to Vienna for medical study," recalled The New York Times decades later.  "He repaid her by accepting some of her poverty-stricken protégés without fee.")

Since 1906, Lorber had been on the visiting staff of Beth Israel Hospital.  He treated East Village residents from his office here for years.  But he would not remain.  When he died on January 30, 1958, he was living at 77 Park Avenue.  He did not survive to see the release of Adam Barnett's book, Doctor Harry: The Story of Dr. Herman Lorber four months later.  In reviewing the book, Meyer Berger began, "This little volume tells the story of Herman Lorber, an immigrant boy who rose out of East Side poverty to wide practice in surgery.  It follows his steady climb from an East Fourth Street tenement to the quiet dignity of Gramercy Park."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As Susie Hachfelder had been, resident Isidor Wagner was driven and dynamic.  In July 1914, the private bank of Adolph Mandel was closed by the State Superintendent of Banks.  The depositors, many of the German immigrants, lost their savings.  On August 25, The Evening World reported that protestors marched from the shuttered bank to the Criminal Courts Building.  "A majority of the marchers were woman carrying or leading babies and children."  In front of the group was Isidor Wagner holding a banner that read:

We, the depositors of Mandel's bank, are marching to District-Attorney Whitman.  He should help us obtain our money.

At the Criminal Courts Building, five protestors, led by Wagner and Sarah Kritz, a widow, were admitted inside.  They were taken by a policeman to the District Attorney's office.  The Evening World reported, "After hearing that most of the depositors were in actual need of their money," District Attorney Groehl telephoned to the State Superintendent "who said that arrangements are being made by which the partial payments to depositors will be made next Monday."  The article said that the news placated the committee "and the parade moved back to the east side and disbanded."

The Turbin family lived here in 1931 when law school graduate Joseph G. Turbin applied for admission to the bar.  His extended family would be in the sights of the Federal Government within a few years.  In 1941, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities compiled a list of voters who registered as Communists.  Among them were Marion, Molly, Pauline and Sam Turbin, all living at 330 East 4th Street.  Two years later, Pauline Turbin's name was filed with the office of the Board of Elections as a nominee for the position as County Committeeman.

In November 1952, the Children's Aid Society's Sloane Center on East 6th Street held a contest for neighborhood children.  In connection with Cat Week, prizes were awarded in seven categories: longest tail, loudest meow, best trained, cleanest, most unusual, sleepiest looking, and the longest whiskers.  Eight-year-old resident Gloria Zaretz took away the prize for cleanest cat "for her short-haired brown tabby named 'Rory,'" reported The New York Times.

Living and working here at early as 1961 were artist and sculptor Claes Oldenburg and his artist wife Coosje van Bruggen.  Born in Sweden in 1929, Oldenburg was known for his public art installations of oversized common objects.  He married Coosje in 1977.  The two often collaborated on works.

Claes Oldenburg working in his 330 East 4th Street studio in 1961.  photograph by Robert R. McElroy, from the collection of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Northeast Neighborhood Association had its offices here.  The Staten Island Advance explained on November 29, 1971 that the organization was "one of the first health projects in the United States," saying it "provides health services on the lower East Side, and is owned and operated by the community which it serves."

 

A renovation completed in 1993 resulted in a single-room-occupancy residence for the aged.  There are about seven rooms per floor in the facility.  It was likely during that remodeling that the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to sidewalk level.  The Renaissance Revival carvings of the first floor were shaved off and the cornice replaced with a brick parapet wall.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post.