The West 135th Street Branch Library (Schomburg Collection) - 103 West 135th Street

Ivy trailed over the facade in 2009.  photograph by McMillin24

On March 12, 1901, Andrew Carnegie offered the City of New York a gift of $5,202.261 (about $192 million in 2024) to build free circulating libraries. The condition was that the city would provide the land and maintain the libraries.  An agreement was reached and the plans for fifty libraries throughout the five boroughs were begun.  

The firm of McKim, Mead & White received the commission for the West 135th Street Branch.  Principal Charles McKim and William Kendall took the reins in designing a sedate, neo-Classical structure faced in white limestone.  Three stories tall, it sat upon a rusticated base.  Double-height pilasters separated the upper bays.  A dramatic Palladian window dominated the second floor, its third-floor fanlight was ornamented with an elaborate wrought-iron grill.  McKim and Kendall finished the design with a deeply overhanging cornice.

Theodore Wesley Koch, in his 1917 A Book of Carnegie Libraries, noted, "The branch of 103 West 135th Street is a departure architecturally from most of the Carnegie buildings, inasmuch as it has an overhanging tile roof and a large arched central window in front running from the second to the third story."  

The deed to the property, according to Koch, provided, "that a strip of land 10 feet wide should be left free" on both sides.  The result was light and ventilation on all four sides of the building.  The architects took advantage of the western strip to provide an outside entrance to the basement assembly room.  The ground floor held the adult circulating and reference department, the second was the "children's room," and the third floor held the periodical room and janitor's apartments.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Harlem neighborhood around the library was composed mostly middle-class and upper-middle-class Jewish families.  They utilized the routine functions of a branch library, while enjoying programs and activities within the basement assembly room.  On November 3, 1906, for instance, The School Journal announced that Dr. J. H. Canfield of Columbia University would be giving a series of eight lectures on "The History of Civilization" on Tuesday evenings.

At the time of Dr. Canfield's lectures, the demographics of Harlem had begun to change.  In 1904, subway service was extended northward, making the district more accessible.  The increasing influx of blacks ignited white panic among some residents, like Irish-born retired police officer John G. Taylor, who moved to West 136th Street in 1903.  In 1910, according to Mike Wallace in his Greater Gotham, A History of New York City From 1898 to 1919, Taylor "opposed allowing blacks to use the New York Public Library branch at 103 West 135th Street."  (A panicked Taylor, writes Wallace, "advocated building a 24-foot-high wall along West 136th Street to keep blacks from moving north.")

Noticeably not racist were the inclusive policies of the West 135th Street Branch.  Black faces would have been among the audiences at the January 1912 lecture on "Cowboy and Engineer in Colorado" by Graham C. Hunter, and Mrs. Emma P. Telford's talk on "Arizona: the Cradle and the Wonderland of the New York" later that month.

Gradually, the library became an integral part in the developing black community.  On September 17, 1914, for instance, The New York Age reported, "The Negro Civic Improvement League plans to organize its first neighborhood Association in Harlem at a meeting to be held in the Library, assembly room, 103 West 135th street, on Friday evening, September 18, at 8.15 o'clock."

In pre-air conditioning days, the second floor windows are opened wide.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1917, the assembly room was the regular meeting space for what the Young Men's Christian Association termed the "Colored Men's Branch" while its new building at 179-183 West 135th Street was being constructed.  The "Big Meetings" were held here every Sunday.  Dr. Adam Clayton Powell addressed the assembly on April 29 that year.

The themes of the lectures reflected the issues important to the locals.  On October 14, 1917, Dr. Mason Pitman, superintendent of the Colored Orphan Asylum gave a lecture on "The Colored Orphan," and Captain Charles W. Fillmore spoke on "The Negro as Soldier."

A letter to the editor of the New-York Tribune published on September 6, 1921 foreshadowed things to come.  It began:

Sir:  Readers of The Tribune will be interested in knowing that there is on exhibition at the New York Public Library, 103 West 135th Street, a unique collection of negro works of art.  Among the pieces displayed are paintings, drawings, etchings and work in sculpture.  There are also some rare books produced by negroes during the days of American slavery, and others of historic and racial value written by black men of America and other countries.

The cover of the 1921 catalog.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The exhibition came from the collection of George Young, who ran a bookshop at 135 West 135th Street.  In its October 1922 issue, the Fisk University News said, "Young's Book Exchange contains the largest collection of books by and about the negro race that has been assembled anywhere and which is open to the public."  The article said, "From the beginnings six years ago with six books, Mr. Young's collection has grown to 8,00 to 10,000 books by and pertaining to negroes.  Some of the rarest copies of first editions are there, for Mr. Young has had exception opportunities for collecting."

The article said, "Miss Ernestine Rose, the librarian, and Augustus Dill have arranged an exhibit to show the colored people of the neighborhood, and the white people, what the negro has accomplished." Its success was such that the showing became an annual event.

Like George Young, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg was an avid collector of black history.  Born in Puerto Rico, Schomburg arrived in New York in 1891 at the age of 17.  He obtained a job with the Bankers Trust Company where he stayed for two decades.  According to his biographer, Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, his passion for collecting black history stemmed from his fifth-grade teacher's offhanded remark, "Black people have no history, no heroes, no great moments."  

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Shelley Fisher Fishkin writes in her Writing America--Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee:

On May 19, 1926, more than a hundred packing crates were delivered to the central building of the New York Public Library to be prepared for shipment to their final destination: the 135th Street branch of the library, where thousands of books, manuscripts, etchings, portraits, and pamphlets would be made available to the public the following January.

The crates contained the accumulated collection of Arthur A. Schomburg.  On January 14, 1927, a private viewing was held of the Schomburg Collection prior to its official opening.  Arthur Schomburg would be appointed curator of the Negro Division of Literature, History, and Prints in 1930.

Although now the greatest repository of black history in the nation, the 135th Street Branch library continued its regular programs.  On July 16, 1932, The New York Age reported that the staff, "cordially invites the summer students and their friends to their annual reception and dance, to be held in the auditorium of the library."  

The branch operated a Book Club and speakers regularly appeared at its meetings.  On May 19, 1933, for instance, Alain Locke of Howard University spoke on "Contemporary Drama and Negro Life" and Dr. Charles Augustin Petioni discussed, "The American Negro Colonist in the West Indies."  The New York Age mentioned that the latter was the "second of a series of lectures especially planned and promoted by A. A. Schomberg [sic]."

During the Depression years, the Federal Works Project funded the American Negro Theater, which was based here.  Called "the Library Theatre," on July 6, 1940, The New York Age called it, "the ideal place for a summer theatre and in the heart of Harlem."  On May 30, 1942, the newspaper announced the upcoming opening of Starlight.  Included in the cast was "Ruby Wallace Dee."  A month later, the newspaper called her "the greatest find of 1942."

The New York Age was correct.  The following year, Ruby Dee made her Broadway debut in South Pacific.  She would go on to win an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and an Academy Award nomination, among many other honors.

The Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library became central to Harlem community activities.  On July 18, 1959, the New York Age reported on a new exhibition "commemorating the 50th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" here.

The aging building was in need of maintenance in August 1968 when Black World/Negro Digest reported that the city had set aside $54,000 "for an engineering survey of the old Harlem building house the endangered Schomburg Collection."  At the same time, the state had allotted $80,000 "to aid its manuscript preservation campaign."  The Board of Estimates anticipated that "an additional $966,600 would be forthcoming to reconstruct the library building."

In 1974, a series of buildings were vacated in preparation for groundbreaking for a new building for the Schomburg Collection, including a tenement next door.  The ten-foot space between the structures set forth in the 1904 deed proved fortuitous.  On April 9, The New York Times wrote, "Smoke filled the reading room of the Schomburg collection of Negro History and Literature last week as a fire set in an empty tenement next door threatened the irreplaceable collection of memorabilia, art, history and literature housed in the old library building."  It was the most recent of several arson fires in the neighborhood.  "Several weeks ago a custodian spent the night wetting down the sides of the library...as sparks from a burning tenement at 108 West 135th Street licked the side of the Schomburg."

The new building, the Countee Cullen Library branch, was opened in 1980.  Seven years later, in August 1987, Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, escorted a New York Times reporter through the still vacant McKim, Mead & White building.  The landmark building was undergoing a $3.4 million restoration project.

He reminisced, "how Alex Haley researched 'Roots' there; how James Baldwin in the heyday of his Harlem youth discovered literature there; how Kenneth Clark studied there; how such entertainers as Harry Belafonte and Ossie Davis trained there," said the article.

image via marblefairbanks.com

The project resulted in a gift shop and exhibition hall, and the restoration of the American Negro Theatre space.

Cass Gilbert's 1930 NY County Lawyers' Association Bldg - 14 Vesey Street

 

photo by Beyond My Ken

On April 25, 1908, the New-York Tribune reported on the first "organization meeting" of the New York County Lawyers' Association, which had just been incorporated.  The article stressed that it "will in no sense be competitive with the Bar Association," and explained, "One of the main objects of the association will be to add to the influence of the bar in this city in the making of laws and the administration of justice."

Three months later, on July 29, the newspaper reported that the group had signed a lease for part of the 26th floor of the City Investing Building "for a term of years."  Astoundingly, the newspaper mentioned, "The association has a membership of about four thousand."

In 1929, the New York County Lawyers' Association acquired the Real Estate Showroom property at 14 Vesey Street, owned by the Astor estate.  The group commissioned Cass Gilbert to design a permanent headquarters on the site.  The esteemed architect had embellished his Gothic inspired Woolworth Building with terra cotta ornamentation, completed 16 years earlier.  The New York County Lawyers' Association building would be starkly different.

In the 2000 Inventing the Skyline, The Architecture of Cass Gilbert, Margaret Heilbrun notes, "The association preferred a building in a classical revival style.  This meshed with Gilbert's interest in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture...For the law association, Gilbert believed that the colonial, or Georgian, style provided the building with a 'simple, dignified and impressive' image."

While the Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the style as Federal Eclectic, its roots are more British than American.  Heilbrun notes, "The exterior of the Lawyers' Association was similar to rowhouses of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London."  The wrought iron fencing would not be out of place in front of an 18th century men's club in London's West End.

Completed in 1930 and faced in limestone, Gilbert divided the four-story structure into five distinct bays, the openings of the two-story midsection separated by double-height fluted Corinthian pilasters.  Bas relief rondels and panels dignified the spandrels between floors.  The fourth floor sat behind a handsome stone balustrade above a bracketed cornice.  

Gilbert's son, Cass Gilbert, Jr., worked with him on the project, especially, according to Heilbrun, on the interiors.  The ground floor held offices and reception rooms.  On the second floor were the auditorium and lounge, and the third held reading rooms.  The committee board rooms were on the fourth floor, and the janitor's quarters occupied the penthouse level.  While the exterior was English, the design of the auditorium was inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The Auditorium - image via showcase.com

The ongoing Great Depression played a part in the interior design.  Heilbrun writes:

Initially, both Gilbert and the association wanted to segregate any women using the space, whether they were members of the association or relatives of a member.  The association wanted a balcony in the auditorium for wives.  Gilbert contemplated separate lounge and reception areas for the few female members.  In both cases, the added expense of providing these areas persuaded the association to allow women to mix with men.

While the association could not influence the Depression, it had a strong impact on America's other significant issue at the time--Prohibition.  On December 17, 1930, The New York Times reported on the "movement begun late in 1927 by the New York County Lawyers' Association to bring about a clear-cut test of the amendment's validity."  Now Federal District Judge William Clark had declared the Eighteenth Amendment "unconstitutional because [it was] illegally ratified."

image via showcase.com

The New York County Lawyers' Association Building would be the scene of innumerable hearings over the decades.  On November 24, 1964 alone, for instance, The New York Times reported on two hearings held the previous day.  One, by the Temporary State Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code urged the state "to make a prostitute's customers guilty of a crime."  The other had to do with cruelty to animals.  The Commission had asked that "intent be made a factor in prosecution."  That drew heated testimony from irate organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Humane Society of the United States, the animal Welfare Institute and the Friends of Animals.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Perhaps the most consequential reviews were the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime hearings conducted by Senator John H. Hughes in January 1970.  For days crime figures like Mafia leader Joseph Colombo, Carlo Gambino, and Domenico Arcuri testified.  On January 15, The New York Times explained, "the aim of the hearing is to increase 'public awareness' of criminal activity in many fields."

The following year, in August, a two-day hearing conducted by the City Board of Corrections interviewed witnesses concerning "the incidence of death and suicide in city prisons."

The New York County Lawyers' Association left 14 Vesey Street in 2020.  The building was listed for $35 million and sold to Jack Terzi, founder of  JTRE Holdings for "in the low $20 million range," according to The Real Deal.  

photo by Americasroof

Cass Gilbert's dignified limestone structure was designated an individual New York City landmark in 1965 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The J. William Clark Mansion (Automation House) - 49 East 68th Street

 

image by Jim Henderson

Millionaire banker Frederick Dobbs Tappen died in his brownstone-fronted mansion at 49 East 68th Street on February 28, 1902.  Just over a decade later, on January 4, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that the house had been sold, noting it, "adjoins the residence of Percy R. Pyne, at the northwest corner of Park av."  (The Pyne mansion had been designed by McKim, Mead & White two years earlier.)

The buyers were John William Clark and his wife, Margaretta Brua Cameron.  Born in 1867, Clark was president of the Clark Thread Company and the Spool Cotton Company, founded by his grandfather in Paisley Scotland.  (Its O. N. T. brand, short for Our New Thread, was a staple in stores and homes throughout the nation.)  Margaretta was the daughter of former Senator J. Donald Cameron.  The couple had three sons, William, Jr., John Balfour, and James Cameron.  The family's summer estate, Peachcroft, was in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Peachcroft, from the collection of the Bernardsville Public Library

The Clarks hired the architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston to design a replacement home on the site of the Tappen mansion.  On April 23, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Plans have been filed for a new five-story private residence for J. William Clark...The facade will be of brick and marble in the Colonial style of architecture."  The neo-Federal style was, almost assuredly, meant to blend harmoniously with the Pyne mansion next door.  The architects placed the cost of construction at $60,000 (about $1.9 million in 2024).

John William Clark, United States Passport Application, 1923

On October 4, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that excavation was underway for the Clark house.  Its completion would be too late for the Clarks' eldest son, William, to occupy it.  He was married to Marjory Bruce Blair at Blairsden, the country estate of the bride, a month before the article.

The family moved into 49 East 68th Street the following year.  The main and service entrances were recessed within a double-arched loggia.  The upper floors were faced in Flemish bond red brick.  French windows at the second floor opened onto a full-width iron balcony.  The metal-clad attic level was fronted by two elegant, Federal style dormers.

James Cameron was 22 at the time and John Balfour was 17.  The boys prepared at St. Mark's School and James was currently a junior at Harvard.  When America entered World War I in 1917, both young men entered the United States Army Air Service.  While John would serve in France, earning the rank of lieutenant, James was stationed in Texas for the war's duration.

The Clark house enjoyed an unexpected second wall of light and ventilation.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The global conflict was unable to hinder James's romance.  On December 6, 1917, the Air Service Journal reported on his engagement to Teresa Fabbri, the daughter of multimillionaire Ernesto Fabbri and the great-granddaughter of William Henry Vanderbilt.  He obtained a ten-day pass and the pair was married at Bar Harbor, Maine, on December 11.  Two days later, The New York Times reported, "Lieutenant James C. Clark and his bride, formerly Miss Teresa Fabbri...are on their way to San Antonio, Texas, where Lieutenant Clark is in the Signal Corps of the ground school for the Aviation Corps."

At the war's end, James was discharged on December 20, 1918 with the rank of first lieutenant.  He and John went into the family's business.  (John would eventually become its president, by then renamed Coats & Clark, Inc.)  William, in the meantime, had pursued law and eventually became a Federal judge. 

On January 16, 1924, The New York Times reported on John's engagement to Rhoda Cameron.  The couple was married later that spring.

John and Margaretta were at the Bernardsville estate on July 15, 1928 when John suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 60.  He left an estate of $12,957,775, according to The New York Times.  The figure would translate to $236 million today.

In May 1937, Margaretta leased 49 East 68th Street.  It was occupied by Walter Mack and his family when she died in March 1941 at the age of 71.  Two years later, her estate sold the mansion to Leroy Alton Lincoln.

Lincoln was chairman of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.  Born in 1880, his earliest American ancestor had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts in 1635.  His wife, the former Hilda F. Deyoe, was his third, his two previous wives having died.

The Lincolns resided here for a decade, selling the house in November 1953 to the Soviet Government for $150,000 ($1.7 million today).   The New York Times explained it would be used "as a residence for Andrei Y. Vishinsky, the Soviet Union's permanent delegate to the United Nations," adding, "The property has twenty rooms, an elevator, and three floors below ground."

In 1967, the mansion was purchased by Theodore Kheel for his American Federation on Automation and Employment.  Now called Automation House, its lavish 1914 interiors were gutted.  The renovations resulted in a "private museum" on the first and second floors, and office and exhibition space on the upper floors.

On March 2, 1970, New York Magazine announced, "Automation House...opens this week.  It is a kind of electrical service station for artists to plug in to.  Its first show will be The Magic theatre, an exhibition of electrical environments by eight artists."

Automation House was more than that.  Theodore W. Kheel was described by the Staten Island Advance in November 1970 as "the famous lawyer-mediator."  The venue for years was the scene of tense labor negotiations and was the headquarters of the Board of Mediation for Community Disputes, founded here in January 1969.

Automation House was outfitted with "telephones and electrowriters, as well as telex, Xerox and Magnavox facsimile machines," according to Catherine Spencer in her Beyond the Happening, Performance Art and the Politics of Communication.  Here, she writes, "Groups of children were invited to inhabit them simultaneously and use the technology to send each other text and picture messages."

The house served as meeting space, as well.  On January 27, 1970, for instance, British Prime Minister Wilson addressed a gathering of management and labor leaders here.  And later that year, on July 1, Samuel R. Pierce was sworn in here as general counsel to the Treasury Department by Secretary David M. Kennedy.  (Pierce was the first black to receive an appointment to a sub-Cabinet post in the Treasury Department, according to the Associated Press.)

A riotous situation occurred on July 13, 1976 when Rolling Stone Magazine, "long a fount of anti-establishment culture," as described by The New York Times, hosted a "big party for the new Jimmy Carter establishment."  The organizers miscalculated the response and at 11:00 p.m. the Automation House executives ordered the doors barred.  The New York Times reported, 

Left out on the sidewalk were the likes of: Warren Beatty, the actor, and Representative Bella S. Abzug, who later sauntered off as a twosome; Jane Fonda, the actress; Katharine Graham, publisher; and Benjamin Bradlee, editor of The Washington Post; William vanden Heuvel, Cater campaign manager here; Theodore H. White, the chronicler of presidential campaigns, and for a while, Lauren Bacall.

A few of the celebrities who had made it inside before the doors were locked were Paul Newman, Shirley MacLaine, and Walter Cronkite.  Apparently Bella Abzug was not overly-bruised by not gaining admittance and the following year, on December 19, 1977, she used Automation House to announce her candidacy for Congress.

Richard Feigen purchased 49 East 68th Street in 1991.  He told James McElhinney in an interview for the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in 2009, "All the detail was gone from the inside...And it appealed to me because you had brick walls; you could hang early paintings and contemporary art and everything in there.  And I've always enjoyed mixing these things up."

On September 23, 1991, New York Magazine reported, "Richard L. Feigen settles into his new location with paintings and drawings by the Italianate Dutch landscape painter Bartholomeus Breenbergh."  It was the first of a long string of  important exhibitions that would last through 1999 when  composer Mitch Leigh and his artist wife Abby Leigh purchased the property for $1.1 million.

photo by Jim Henderson

The couple hired Wendy Evans Joseph to reconvert the building into a single family home.  Mitch Leigh, who won a Tony Award for composing the music to Man of La Mancha, died in 2014.  Two years later, Abbie Leigh, whose works hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Whitney, sold the house for $20.4 million.

The 1845 David Ramsey House - 737 Washington Street

 

Charles Crane's grocery store and home were at 734 and 736 Washington Street in 1844.  That year he partnered with carman David Ramsey, to erect four matching houses almost directly across the street at 733 to 739 Washington Street.  Completed in 1845, they were faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Each was three stories tall above English basements.  Their Greek Revival design featured handsome entranceways with narrow sidelights, transoms, and pilasters that embraced the paneled doors.

Ramsey took 737 Washington Street for his family.  In 1845, they shared it another carman (a delivery wagon driver), James A. Bogart, and John B. Zabriskie, who was a "boatman," a repairer of boats on the nearby riverfront.

By the early 1850s, the Henry Corse family owned 737 Washington Street.  Corse was in the feed business at 401 West Street.  He and his wife had at least one son, Samuel.  Henry Corse, additionally, bought and sold Greenwich Village real estate.

Boarding with the family in 1853 were Mary Pulis, the widow of David Pulis, and her daughter Kate.  In 1855, the Corses' boarders were Harriett Phillips, the widow of Charles S. Phillips, and Ezekiel McDonnell, a laborer.  

On Saturday night, June 16, 1855, McDonnell went to a porter-house on West Street, between Troy Street (today's West 12th) and Gansevoort Street.  There, "at a late hour," according to The New York Times, he got into a quarrel with other working men.  The newspaper said, "The dispute getting pretty warm, the parties left the liquor-store somewhat intoxicated, and renewed the quarrel on the street."

The argument turned physical, with McDonnell fighting a laborer named William White.  At one point, White picked up a three-pound paving stone and "battered in the skull of Ezekiel McDonnell."  White was immediately arrested and McDonnell was brought back to 737 Washington Street where physicians said, "it was impossible that he can survive."

In 1857, the Corse family's boarders were George Goodheart, the deputy clerk of the Washington Market; and Hypolite Lacour (sometimes spelled Lecour), a maker of watchcases.  The latter remained here for at least another year.

The family left town in 1865, at least for the summer months.  On March 4, an advertisement in the New York Herald read, "To let, a three story House, 737 Washington street, from 1st day of May, gas and Croton water.  Inquire at 737 Washington street.  Henry Corse."

The mention of illuminating gas and Croton water was notable, revealing that the Corse house had the latest in updated conveniences.

Following Samuel Corse's wedding, he brought his bride, Elizabeth Antoinette, to 737 Washington Street.  In September 1867, they named their newborn son, Henry, after the boy's grandfather.

Tragically, Elizabeth Antoinette died on October 23, 1869.  Her funeral was held here three days later.  Less than a year-and-a-half later, on March 13, 1871, little Henry Corse died.  His funeral, too, was held in the parlor.

In the mid-1880s, Almi De Schempfeleere was described by The New York Times as, "an extensive manufacturer of gloves in Sottenghem [Belgium]."  The newspaper said, "Eugenie Copenello was one of his favorite girls, and although he was more than 30 years her senior, she bore him two children."  When De Schempfeleere got into financial trouble, he turned to forgery.  "He went at it on a large scale," said The New York Times, his forgeries amounting to 90,000 francs by early 1885 (about $78,200 in American dollars in 2024).

De Schempfeleere fled with Eugenie Copenello and the two children to America, landing in New York City in December 1885.  The New York Times said that he had presumably brought the "proceeds of his forgery with him."  He and his family found rooms in the basement of 737 Washington Street and De Schempfeleere found a job doing "homework" for a glove maker on Broadway.

In March 1887, the Belgian Government traced De Schempfeleere to New York.  United States Deputy Marshall Bernhardt took up the case on this side of the Atlantic.  By April, detectives had tracked the family to 737 Washington Street.  The New York Times explained that two detectives kept the house under constant surveillance.

Night and day the occupants of the basement were watched.  Seldom did the man let the woman go out.  Not more than once in two months were the two children seen on the sidewalks.  Only to go to the factories with gloves finished and return with gloves to be stitched, and on occasion to the corner grocery for scanty supplies, did De Schempfeleere himself leave the dismal home he made for Eugenie and her two little girls.

At first receiving the reports, Marshall Bernhardt had sent for photographs of the suspects.  The Times said, "he thought it queer that a man who had run away with 90,000f. should live so niggardly as the man he was watching."  The photographs arrived, and, sure enough, they were of De Schempfeleere and Copenello.  On June 29, 1887, De Schempfeleere was arrested in a nearby grocery store where he was purchasing a loaf of bread.

As it turned out, the detectives had moved in just in time.  Deputy Bernhardt told reporters, "His idea was to save whatever of the money he had kept from the forgery, and after hiding himself away in this dirty retreat until the Belgian people had given up the search to leave the poor girl and live upon the money."  What happened to Eugenie Copenello and the two girls is unclear.

By the early 1890s, the house was owned by Joseph Kennedy.  He and his wife had a teenaged son, Thomas.  The riverfront, just a block away from 737 Washington Street, was crime ridden and dangerous, and the neighborhood was filled with street gangs.  In 1894, Thomas Kennedy was 15 years old and a member of the Dumpers gang.

On February 23 that year, the New York Herald reported on "several bloody battles yesterday afternoon between a couple of hundred lads who belong to various 'gangs' in the vicinity of Bank and Bethune streets."  The gangs had been facing off for a week "and causing the police much trouble."

The gangs battled again on February 22.  "The air was filled with flying missiles of all kinds and several lads were blazing away with small pistols."  Among those firing handguns was Thomas Kennedy.  Suddenly, one of the teens yelled, "Cop!" and the street warriors ran in all directions.  Thomas Kennedy was not fast enough and was arrested.  At the stationhouse he claimed "he had no intention of killing anyone."  During the melee one boy was stabbed and another shot.

Thomas's father was affluent enough to afford a bicycle, a significant investment in 1896.  On the evening of April 27 that year, Joseph Kennedy was riding up Eighth Avenue behind several other bicyclists.  About five feet behind him was a "double truck."  At the corner of 33rd Street, piano-polisher John Callanan was attempting to cross the street.  The New York Sun reported, "Callanan appeared annoyed at having to wait so long."  As Kennedy approached the intersection, Callanan had waited long enough.

The New York Evening Post reported that as a tandem bicycle passed Callanan, who was with a friend, he "struck out at the rear rider.  When Kennedy was about to pass Callanan, the latter gave him a push that threw him from his wheel, and to save himself from being run over by the truck, he grasped the bridle of one of the horses."  Kennedy was unhurt, but, "his wheel was demolished," according to the New York Evening Post.  Callanan was fined $5 (about $187 today) and Kennedy had to walk home.

The family of John F. and Mary Quigg lived here by around 1910.  The couple had a daughter, Agnes, born in September 1906.  At 3:30 on the afternoon of March 5, 1911, Mary Quigg entered the Charles Street Police Station in a panic.  The Evening World said, "Detectives learned that the little girl was seen walking through Bank street, near Greenwich street, at 1:30 o'clock with a roughly dressed man, who was carrying a shovel."

Happily, the New York Press reported that little Agnes was found later that afternoon.  But, it added, "If the police had acted on the description of Agnes given by Mrs. Quigg, they probably never would have found her."  Mary Quigg described her daughter as "clad in the daintiest of clothes, and for a child of her years she is as clean and as neat as can be."

When Detective Doyle noticed a four-year-old at the corner of 10th and Bleecker Streets enjoying a candy stick, he thought, "That can't be Agnes," reported the New York Press.  During her adventure the little girl had changed.  "The youngster's face was gummed and and colored with sugar and dye from the candy.  Her hair was in a tangle, and her frock looked as though it had been in the street and run over by a truck or two."  And the roughly dressed man with the shovel?  The New York Press explained that Agnes had "left home earlier in the day and had gone tagging after a snow shoveler."

John F. Quigg died on January 5, 1918.  As had been the case so often before, his funeral was held in the house three days later.

A fire escape in this 1941 photograph testifies to the unofficial apartments inside.  image from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Among the occupants of 737 Washington Street in the 1920s was Joseph Hand, who worked as a longshoreman for the Cunard Steamship line on the Hudson River piers.  Two decades later, Francis Peter Samuels lived here when he went off to serve in World War II as a crewmember of the 71st U.S. Naval Construction Battalion.

When the war broke out, artist and printmaker Stanley William Hayter moved from Paris to New York City.  Born in England in December 1901, he was regarded as one of the world's preeminent printmakers of the 20th century.  While still living in Paris in 1927, he founded the studio Atelier 17, which was frequented by the likes of Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, and Wassily Kandinsky.  While living in New York he founded the New York Atelier 17 and taught printmaking at the New School.

In an article in Art News in 1950, Ruthven Todd spoke of Hayter working in his studio on the top floor of 737 Washington Street on Marionette, an unusually large print for Hayter.  

Marionette was among the works Hayter executed while living at 737 Washington Street.

The print was perhaps that last Haytner would complete while living here.  He returned to Paris in 1950 and died there in 1988.

In the meantime, 737 Washington Street was converted to apartments, one per floor, in 1960.  It was returned to a single family home in 2003.

photographs by the author

The 1897 Elbridge J. and Agnes H. Moore House - 268 West 91st Street

 

Agnes H. Moore took out an $18,000 mortgage on 268 West 91st Street in 1897.  The recently completed house was one of a row of seven begun the previous year by developer James Frame and designed by Alexander Welch.  Agnes was the wife of Elbridge J. Moore, and it was common at the time for the title of real estate to be placed in the name of the wives of well-to-do couples.

The Moores' new home was four stories tall and 18-feet wide.  It was faced in gray Roman brick above the planar limestone base.  The entrance was tucked behind two square columns that upheld a two-story bowfront culminating in a stone balustrade.  Doric pilasters separated the three windows on the fourth floor.  

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Agnes Lawrence Hall Moore was the widow of John T. Walker.  Moving in with her and Elbridge were her daughter from her previous marriage, Florence Le Baron Walker; and her mother, Urania Lawrence Hall.  (Urania spoke proudly of having been the first person married at the newly built First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue in 1846.)

Agnes and Florence often appeared in the society columns together.  On January 7, 1900, for instance, the New York Herald reported that Agnes "will be at home to her friends on Wednesdays throughout January.  She will be assisted in receiving by Miss Walker."  

Later that summer, on August 4, Brooklyn Life reported, "Mrs. Elbridge J. Moore and her daughter, Miss Florence H. Le Baron Walker, of West Ninety-first street, Manhattan, sail for Europe next Wednesday on the Oceanic, accompanied by Miss Walker's uncle, Bishop Walker...After traveling through England, they intend to visit the Paris Exposition and the Passion Play at Oberammergau."

The following year, the 91st Street house buzzed with the excitement of wedding plans.  On October 26, 1901, Brooklyn Life reported that Florence would be married to Ernest Sayre Emanuel in fashionable St. Thomas's Church on Fifth Avenue on October 30.

Elbridge J. Moore walked his step-daughter down the aisle of the church that had been the scene of notable society weddings.  The New York Times reported, "A reception followed at the home of the bride's mother, 268 West Ninety-first street."

At the time of the wedding, Agnes was vice-president of the Eclectic Club, founded in 1896.  Club Women of New York described the club's broad interests, saying, "In all movements, whether literary, social, ethical, altruistic or philanthropic the interest and influence of the Eclectic Club will be found active.  Although concerning itself with grave social problems and broadly active charities, yet the club does not neglect questions of literature and language, of taste and manners, while it prides itself also upon the high order of its musical entertainments."

In 1903, Agnes and Elbridge Moore moved to the Ansonia Apartments and sold 268 West 91st Street to Leo J. and Mary C. O'Donovan.  Leo was a partner in the consulting engineering firm Reis & O'Donovan.

Living behind the O'Donovans at 271 West 90th Street in 1906 was another consulting engineer, Clinton H. Fletcher.  At about 4:00 on the morning of June 1, he was awakened by a noise in the backyard.  Looking out the window, he saw a man climbing over the fence into the O'Donovans' yard.  He phoned police, then went back to the window to see the crook at his neighbor's basement window.

"There were heavy iron bars over the window," reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "and the burglar had to pick out the lead, in which they were set, before he could bend apart two of them and squeeze through."  The man disappeared into the dark house.  Police arrived just as the 30-year-old James Thompson was exiting the window carrying a sack of the O'Donovans' silver.  A struggle ensued, during which one policeman was stabbed in the hand with a silver carving fork.  The article said, "The burglar was well marked for identification by the nightsticks of the two officers, when they were through with him."

By 1911, the O'Donovans leased the West 91st Street house to George Washington Hill and his wife.  Hill was an executive with the American Tobacco Co.  (He would eventually become its president and chairman.)  

George Washington Hill, from "Sold American!" The First Fifth Years, 1904-1954

While his wife was visibly social, perhaps none of her entertainments was more high-profile than the theater party and supper she hosted for Mary Lillian Duke, the daughter of Hill's multimillionaire employer, Benjamin N. Duke, and her fiancé, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr. on May 17, 1915.  The Newark, New Jersey Evening Star reported,

The Tapestry Room at Sherry's was reserved for the party.  The decorations were entirely of white, relieved only by a gilded cage containing cooing turtledoves, which was hung near the entrance.  The guests sat at a large open table and in the centre was a huge cake decorated with tiny electric lights and topped with a miniature bride and bridegroom.  During the supper a travesty on the Biddle-Duke nuptials was shown in moving pictures, giving the humorous details of the preparation for the wedding and those who are to participate, much to the surprise of the guests.

That would be the last substantial entertainment given by the Hills while living here.  On September 19, 1915, Mary O'Donovan placed an advertisement in The New York Times offering the house for rent (emphasizing three bathrooms) at $2,500 per year, or about $6,500 per month by 2024 conversion.  The ad was answered by Geza D. Berko.

Berko was the founder and editor of the Hungarian-language newspaper Amerikai Magyar Nepszava and a leading figure in the Hungarian community.  He and his wife had at least two daughters, Marguerite and Olga.  The family had just moved in when Marguerite's engagement to Dr. Nicholas Galdonyi was announced.  The following year, on October 13, 1920, the Berkos announced Olga's engagement to Peter Fleischer.

The family's affluence was reflected in Geza Berko's detailed wish-list for a country house on April 15, 1921:

Country Property wanted--9-10 room house, 2-3 baths, and garage, in good residential section, with some ground; must be in first-class condition; at most 40 minutes from New York; no seashore; state price.  Berko.  268 West 91st st.

The O'Donovans' last tenant in the 91st Street house would be the Dugans.  Emaline Dugan signed a lease in October 1922.  By 1927, it was owned by doctors Emma Selkin-Aronson and Louis Aronson.  The couple had two children, Arthur, who was 11 years old in 1927, and Agnes, who was four.

Born in 1888, Emma graduated from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1910, and was Attending Surgeon and Gynecologist at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, and Associate Gynecologist at Bronx Hospital.  

A psychiatrist and specialist in diseases of the brain and spinal cord, Louis Aronson was the adjutant neurologist at Mt. Sinai Hospital and attending neurologist at the Vanderbilt Clinic and the Bronx General Hospital.  He, as well, instructed in neurology at Columbia University.  Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, he graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1904.

Around 1929, Louis Aronson took up sculpture as a pastime and became adept at portraiture.  The New York Times said, "He was regarded as a good amateur and had exhibited his work at the New York Academy of Medicine.  He was a member of the Physician's Art Club."

Dr. Louis Aronson suffered a fatal heart attack in the house on February 1, 1934.  He was 52 years old. His funeral was held the following day at the Riverside Memorial Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue.  Nine months later, Emma sold 268 West 91st Street to Frank J. Reineske for $26,000 (about $592,000 today), $7,000 less than its assessed value.

Reineske, who lived in Glen Rock, New Jersey, converted the house to apartments.  It was renovated again in 1964, resulting in two apartments per floor and one in the new penthouse level, unseen from the street.

photographs by the author

The Lost Helmcke & Von Glahn Grocery - 182 Spring Street

 

image via the Landmarks Preservation Commission

Around 1824, three three-and-a-half story houses were erected at the southwest corner of Thompson and Spring Streets.  Clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone, their Federal architecture featured tall dormers at the peaked attic level.  The corner house-and-store, at 162 Spring (renumbered 182 in 1847), had a nearly-windowless facade on Thompson Street.  The single centered openings at each floor culminated in a high, arched window in the gable, below dramatic joined chimneys.

The store in 162 Spring Street was home to the shop of Blavet & Boyce, chairmakers, in 1827.  It was replaced by John Read's locksmith business by 1836, and in 1840 James Gibson's bakery occupied the space.  He remained here until about 1850.

In February 1845, all three houses were sold at auction.  Included with 162 Spring Street was the wooden stable in the rear yard.  The announcement mentioned, "The house is 19 feet 10 inches in width, by 25 feet 11 inches in depth; the stable is 23 feet 6 inches by 13 feet 3 inches, more or less."

In 1851, the family of Henry Helmcke lived in the upper portion while he and partner Christopher Vonglahn ran the Helmcke & Von Glahn grocery store downstairs.  (Why Vonglahn used a space in his surname professionally is puzzling.)

Henry Helmcke was no longer associated with the store in 1859 and the family of Christopher Vonglahn now occupied the upper floors.  Unlike the Helmckes, Christopher and his wife, Gesine Margarethe, took in boarders--all of them Germans.  In 1858, they included William Stadtler, who ran a saloon at 178 Spring Street; Henry L. Schrader, a cabinetmaker; Gustav Hoeltje, who was a crimper (i.e., a navy recruiter); and tailor Frederick Breitwieser.

On September 12, 1859, Christopher and Gesine had a son, Christopher Henry.  The little boy died four years later, on November 22 and his funeral was held in the house the following afternoon.

The couple had a second son, John, on September 22, 1864.  In a tragic case of deja vu, the boy died at the age of five on September 30, 1869.  Once again, a funeral was held in the parlor.

Christopher Vonglahn rented the building from Ann Marshall for years, and operated his grocery store here at least through 1880.  Ann Marshall conveyed the property to her daughters, Caroline E. Marshall and Mary L. Van Ness as a gift in February 1886.  It was around this time that James E. Rosasco took over the grocery store.

Among the upstairs tenants in 1891 was Frank Jenkins, a partner in the embroidery firm Jenkins Brothers.  He was invited to join "a party of pleasure seekers," as worded by The Sun, on the 46-foot yacht, the Amelia, owned by Dr. William Bahn.  The newspaper called the craft, "handsomely finished and furnished."  The party left on the morning of June 14 for an excursion to Nyack.

After their day trip and dinner at Nyack, the Amelia headed back at 5:00.  The Sun reported that the return trip "was made with light and more or less unfavorable winds, and it was nearly 1 A.M. when the Amelia found herself off 111th street."  Frank Jenkins and another passenger had gone below to sleep.  It was a fatal decision.

A tugboat, not seeing the luxury yacht, crashed into it.  "The bow of the tug struck the Amelia amidships, cutting her nearly in two.  She sank almost instantly, leaving her passengers struggling in the water."  All those who had been on deck were rescued, but Jenkins and 16-year-old William Bahn, Jr. were drowned.

By the turn of the century, Caroline Marshall had sole ownership of the building, which was deemed unsafe on March 13, 1903.   Two weeks later, The Bureau of Buildings took over the title, citing "violation of Building Laws."  Caroline apparently did the required repairs and regained the title before the end of the year.  James E. Rosasco was still operating the store, and his license "to sell and deliver milk" was renewed that year.

Caroline Marshall also owned 184 Spring Street, next door.  She made significant updates in May 1911 when she hired architects Harrison & Sackheim to install "toilets, partitions [and] skylights" to the two buildings at a cost of $2,000 (about $66,200 in 2024 terms).

Since the 1880s, Caroline Marshall had lived in the Barrett House on Broadway and 43rd Street (renamed the Hotel Wallick in 1910).  She died there in 1915, The New York Times headlining an article on April 24, "Miss Marshall Hid Cash / Executors Find Envelope Containing $50,000 in Money."  The stashed cash alone would equal about $1.56 million today.  Her will listed significant real estate holdings, and The Times reported that her brother Edmund "is given the property at 182 Spring Street."

Edmund Marshall quickly sold the property to Angelo Frasinetto.  On April 7, 1917, the Record & Guide reported that he had hired architect George J. Casazza to replace it with "a 3-story brick and stone store and lodge room building."  For some reason, the plans were scrapped.  In April 1920 architect Frank E. Vitalo submitted plans for a "3-story tenement" which, too, were never realized.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The following year, the properties at 182 and 184 Spring Street were demolished for a two-story Arts & Crafts style structure designed by Louis A. Sheinart.  It survived until 2020 when it was demolished for a mixed-use building.

many thanks to Jeff Charles Goolsby for suggesting this post