Photo by Alice Lum |
Deeming themselves the 40-46 East 62nd Street
Co., they bought up the three homes at those addresses in 1910 with an
ambitious plan. Rather than construct
fine new homes for just three families; they would erect a luxury apartment
building for eighteen.
By now apartment living for the upper classes had become
acceptable. Apartment houses, once
equated by polite society as refuges for those who could not afford their own homes,
now offered an upscale lifestyle with spacious rooms, servants’ accommodations and
modern luxuries.
The developers hired architect Albert Joseph Bodker to
design the new structure. His design,
completed in 1911, promised to command attention. Bodker produced a neo-Medieval fantasy in
brick, stone and terra cotta, complete with battlements and many-paned
casements. The two-story base was a celebration
of color and Medieval symbols—fearsome griffins, pointed arches and heraldic
shields.
photo by Alice Lum |
For additional income the investors included “two doctors’
apartments of two rooms and bath each” on the ground floor.
photo "The World's New York Apartment House Album" 1911 (copyright expired) |
The floor plans carefully ensured that staff and residents did not needlessly mingle -- The World's New York Apartment House Album 1911, (copyright expired) |
Shortly before the wedding of his daughter, Grace, George
Middleton died. Although the wedding in
the chantry of St. Bartholomew’s Church went on, it was subdued. The Sun noted that “As the bride’s family is
in mourning only relatives and intimate friends have been invited to witness
the ceremony.” Afterward a small
reception was held in the 62nd Street apartment.
Later that year neighbors John W. Peale and his wife
announced the engagement of their daughter, Betty. It would be a socially-prominent match;
Betty’s fiancé was Daniel Le Roy Dresser, the nephew of George W.
Vanderbilt. With World War I raging, Dresser
was in France fighting with the 642nd Aero Squadron and Betty had
recently joined the Red Cross Ambulance Corps.
Theirs was a typical wartime romance among the upper class
young folks. Another involved William Ford Goulding who lived
in the building with his widowed mother, Mrs. William H. Goulding, when he left
home to serve with the 93rd Squadron of the First Army. The Gouldings came from a long-established
and esteemed Massachusetts family. Upon
his return from the war, Goulding became engaged to Helen Rickert. The New-York Tribune said “Miss Rickert is a
Spence School girl and a member of the Junior League, and during the war was
actively engaged in canteen work and connected with relief organizations.”
Through war and weddings the Osborns managed to be socially
visible. In September 1918 The Sun
reported that “Mrs. H. Fairfield Osborn, Jr. will be at 40 East Sixty-second
Street for the winter,” and in July, 1921 it advised that “Mr. and Mrs. H.
Fairfield Osborn, Jr., have arrived from abroad and have gone to their summer
home at Garrison-on-the-Hudson for the season.
On their return to town in the fall they will be at 40 East Sixty-second
Street.”
At least two of the female residents in the first decades of
the building were more memorable than their successful husbands.
Williston B. Lockwood was a member of the New York Stock
Exchange and a partner in Flower & Co.
But his indomitable wife, Janet Isabel Dominick Lockwood, was the face
of the family. Prior to the ratification
of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited the sale
or manufacture of alcohol, Janet Lockwood was a fiery temperance leader. She was president of the Woman’s Auxiliary of
the Church Temperance Society, and organized the Hand-in-Hand Society of the
Kings Daughters. She was also a member
of the National Society of Colonial Dames.
Janet Lockwood would continue to live on at No. 40 East 62nd
Street after the death of her husband, until her own death at the age of 87 on
October 10, 1938.
photo by Alice Lum |
On July 22, 1905 she married Phillips A. Clark in
Newport. He would soon discover that
his wife was not your average diffident socialite. Greta was drawn to animals and pursuits more
often associated with men. When the
Monmouth Hounds were organized in Newport, she was named Assistant Master of
Hounds—the first female to receive the post.
No doubt to the shock of other wealthy society women, she garnered fame as
a big-game hunter.
Her attention turned from killing animals to saving them,
however. Along with her many
philanthropies, she was active in the New York Women’s League for Animals and she
was instrumental in the establishment of the Ellin Prince Speyer Hospital for
Animals. In 1927 it came to Greta Clark’s
attention that when families left the city for the summer, they would simply
put their dogs and cats on the street and replace them in the fall. She wrote a heart-felt letter to the editor
of The New York Times on June 8.
She asked “all owners of pets who expect to spend their
vacations in the country to make provision for these animals during their
absence…Do not turn them out to shift for themselves.”
She penned another letter to the newspaper five years later
when a heroic deed came to her attention.
In September 1932 motorman Joseph J. Krankoff noticed a small dog
walking the tracks in front of his train.
Much to the disgruntlement of his passengers, Krankoff drove the train “at
a snail’s pace for two miles rather than run over” the dog, Clark wrote. The New York Women’s League for Animals sent
the motorman its “distinguished humane service medal.”
Greta Phillips Allen Clark remained active in society,
according to The New York Times, until her death in her apartment on 62nd
Street two weeks before Janet Lockwood, on September 24, 1938, at the age of 72.
photo by Alice Lum |
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ReplyDeleteCurious why this building became a condo, as opposed to a coop (especially given its vintage)?
ReplyDeleteThe Bouvier Beale family (of Grey Gardens!) lived at this residence as well. Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie), her husband Phelan, daughter Edith (Little Edie), and sons Phelan Jr. and Bouvier resided at 40 E. 62nd in the 1930s, as per the 1936 NYT debutante "coming out" announcement seen here: https://paradigmchange.me/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/MV5BMTA4NjUzMTU0ODVeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU4MDI5MzIzNjQx._V1_.jpg?189db0&189db0
ReplyDelete(If you don't want to click on strange URLs, you can, alternately, do a Google image search for 'new york times january 1936 edith beale debutante' and you'll find it)
In the mid 30's, William P. Clyde from London and his wife Rosemary Robertson moved in. In 1939 they welcomed their first daughter, Gail Rosemary Clyde and two years later their second daughter Alicia Clyde. They resided at 40 E. 62nd for several years until they returned to London.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many, if any, of the apartments have maintained much of their original appearance. It seems that so many of them have been modernized.
ReplyDelete