photo by Alice Lum |
The fine arts would meet the medical arts that year when
Alain E. White’s Medical Arts Building, also known as the Professional Centre
Building, was completed at No. 57 West 57th Street. Designed by the architectural firm of Warren
& Wetmore, the 18-story structure was specifically intended for physicians,
dentists and related medical professionals.
Above a Greek-style "temple" an enormous shield displays a caduceus, the Greek symbol of medicine - photo by Alice Lum |
Shortly after opening, the Medical Arts Sanitarium was the
scene of tragedy. 27-year old Esther
Glasser was admitted when she fell into deep depression when her hopes of
becoming a teacher were dashed after she suffered a nervous breakdown (due to,
it was felt, over-study).
On February 3, 1929 she told her nurse that she felt ill. When the nurse left the room to go for
medicine she jumped from her bed and headed toward the open window. Her sister, Leah, grabbed her arm, but she
broke free. A taxi driver, Martin
Newman, saw Esther’s body hit the pavement fourteen floors below the window.
But more drama was unfolding above the Sanitarium
level. Upon the completion of the
structure Department of Buildings records documented “two housekeeping apartments”
on the 17th and 18th floors. The two luxurious penthouses in a building of
medical offices and hospital rooms would be the scene of incredible drama.
Albert Champion had been a professional bicycle racer but he
acquired a staggering fortune when he invented the spark plug. On a business trip to New York the aging
and married Champion ran into the much younger Edna Crawford—a girl who came to the
big city looking for a wealthy man.
Before long Champion persuaded his wife to agree to a
divorce; giving her $1 million to sweeten the deal. He married Edna, but the autumn-spring
romance quickly soured. Intensely
jealous, he lavished his new wife with clothing and jewels; but refused to
provide her own spending money.
While the pair was in Paris, Edna met the dashing Charles
Brazelle and started an affair. Ironically,
Brazelle was a fortune hunter just as Edna had been. Champion learned of the affair and threatened
to leave Edna penniless. When he found
the lovers together at the Crillon Bar, a violent confrontation ensued during
which Brazelle punched the older man. A
few hours later he was found dead in his hotel room.
Edna and Charles persuaded authorities that Champion had
died of a “weak heart” and the investigation went no further.
Edna, now $12 million richer, returned to New York with the
still-married Brazelle in tow. He
expressed his wish to live in a glitzy modern apartment and when they found the
penthouse of the Medical Arts Building he fell in love. But the apartments were not for rent—so Edna
purchased the entire building for $1.3 million in cash.
Decorators and architects were hired to renovate the two
apartments, including a secret stairway to connect them. Edna took the upper apartment, Charles the
lower. The terraces were landscaped with
exotic plants, and the interiors were overdone with gold and silver walls,
fountains under “artificial moonlight,” and live monkeys and peacocks roaming
free. Edna’s carved bed featured a
canopy of gold cloth made from $30,000 worth of Russian clerical vestments.
High above 57th Street were the lavish apartments of Edna Champion and Charles Brazelle -- photo by Alice Lum |
The remodeling of the apartments would take years. In the meantime “Charlie” Brazelle installed a
brokerage office on the second floor to handle his accounts and collect the
building rents; and he opened a nightclub in the basement of the building in
1934. Based on a club in Paris it even
took the same name, the Boeuf sur le Toit.
The opening was held on December 13 that year with a benefit dinner and
show for the Social Service Department of the Roosevelt Hospital and the Post
Contagion Unit of the Speedwell Society.
The New York Times headline read “New Club’s Opening to Attract Society,
Many Dinners Will be Given at Tomorrow’s Celebration in the Boeuf Sur Le Toit.”
Things weren’t going so happily upstairs, however. Like Edna’s marriage to Albert Champion, this
relationship had taken a dark turn. Charlie kept Edna a prisoner in her apartment
and hired French servants who reported her movements to him. The pair had repeated drunken fights and in one
such incident he threw a telephone and struck her. When Edna’s relatives discovered what was going on they had him ejected from the building and hired bodyguards to protect her.
But Charlie had keys to all the medical offices and would sometimes
hide for days in the building, moving from one suite to another. Finally, on the same night she died from
drugs and alcohol (and a telephone injury), Charlie made his final attempt to
get to her. The bodyguards caught him
and he was flung from her bedroom window onto the terrace below. He died not long afterward and it would be
ten days before his body was identified in the morgue by a brother.
The bizarre apartments high above 57th Street sat
unoccupied for some time. Carlton Alsop
was a radio and film producer who was close friends with celebrities like Judy
Garland. Just married, he rented the
Champion apartment for himself and his bride, a relative of Mrs. John D.
Rockefeller, Jr. He was drawn, too, to the terraces which would
provide outdoor space for his four Great Danes.
The two top floors were redecorated into a stylish, sleek
home. The gaudy, overblown décor was
ripped out—all except for, oddly enough, the 40-foot mural with the nude Edna
Champion. But the atmosphere was
strained.
The dogs whined and stared at windows or walls during the
night and Mrs. Alsop exhibited strange behavior. Both of the newlyweds reported hearing
high-heeled footsteps in the night and the sounds of arguing. Within a year an unnerved Mrs. Alsop packed her bags and
moved out.
Alsop threw cocktail parties to cheer himself up after his
short marriage failed. According to
Danton Walker in his “Spooks Deluxe” “At one of these a guest went upstairs to
visit the bathroom and returned, white and shaking, unable to explain what had
come over him. On another occasion, a
woman guest—an English-woman with a high-sounding title—vowed that someone had
followed her down the stairs. When all
present denied any complicity, she indignantly stated that she ‘disliked
practical jokes.’”
The sound of footsteps eventually drove Alsop nearly mad and
he ended up in the hospital below his penthouse. After his treatment and release, he sublet
the penthouse “at no matter what financial loss.”
While the bizarre stories played out in the penthouse
apartments, the medical offices continued on downstairs. In April 1930 the 57 West Fifty-seventh
Street Sanitarium opened on four floors “devoted to inexpensive rooms” for
middle-class patients, as reported in The New York Times.
A gilded frieze includes bas reliefs of historic physicians -- photo by Alice Lum |
“No city in the world provides better than New York for the
rich and the poor classes, but the middle class has been absolutely neglected,”
said Dr. Max S. Rhode, a director.
The impressive two-story Art Deco entrance survives -- photo by Alice Lum |
Later the club would become Dario’s La Martinique and it was
here that Danny Kaye made his New York debut (for $250 a week for a one-week
booking).
Today there are still some medical offices in the building,
but the private sanitariums and hospitals are long gone. The former penthouse apartments became home
to an art gallery, fordProject, in 2011.
While art and sculpture now fills the rooms were two lovers died; the address
still holds special meaning to those addicted to ghost stories.
many thanks to reader Holly for requesting this post
photo by Alice Lum |
Really great story. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't know about it, I highly recommend the website fultonhistory.com, one of the best sources for New York newspaper archives on the web. If you haven't done so, check out an article in the Mount Vernon Argus, Thursday, April 25th, 1935, for an article on the lawsuit brought by the cad Brazelle against Mrs. Champion's relatives alleging that they had "mulcted" him out of his rightful share of her fortune as her "common law husband". There are photos of Edna, Albert and Brazelle- repeat with Adolph Hitler mustache- as well.
What a ripping yarn! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteastounding building and story. This gem was omitted from the Warren and Wetmore collections book.
ReplyDeleteCool!
ReplyDeleteWorked there as a nurse in the 80's and knew nothing of its' history.
ReplyDeleteIn 1982 I was the plant operations and Housekeeping manager of The Medical Arts Center Hospital. It was a private hospital owned business Norman Sokalow. We had offices on floors 2,3,4 rooms on 14,15,16. Most of what they did was alcohol rehab and Nose Jobs as far as I knew.
ReplyDelete