The 10-story Abbottsford Apartment building at the southwest corner of West End Avenue and 80th Street had three house-like apartments per floor. An advertisement in 1917 offered a suite of ten rooms and two baths for the equivalent of $4,500 per month in 2024. By 1935, the late Victorian structure was no longer fashionable. Despite the challenges of the ongoing Depression, the Wallenstein Realty Corporation razed the Abbottsford and hired George F. Pelham, Jr. to design a replacement building.
Completed the following year, Pelham's 411 West End Avenue rose twice as tall as its predecessor. Faced in cream-colored brick, its Art Moderne design featured corner-wrapping casement windows, balconies with what the AIA Guide to New York City would call, "Corbusier-inspired ships' railings," and a series of setbacks beginning at the 17th floor. Pelham added unique stainless steel decorations that hang like stalactites from the 19th floor. Over the stone-faced entrance, stainless steel ornamentation hangs dramatically like drapery.
Residents of 411 West End Avenue were financially-secure professionals. Among the earliest were the family of Phil Cooper. He owned a small chain of dry cleaning and dyeing stores in Manhattan and a dry cleaning plant that employed 100 persons in Edgewater, New Jersey. The Coopers' son was enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania and their daughter, who graduated from New York University in 1933, worked in the family business.
Similarly, Nathan P. Guttman was treasurer of the Gotham Knitting Mills; Maurice H. Bobb, who lived here with his wife, the former Bessie Garfinkel, was the head of the Maurice H. Bobb wholesale cotton firm; and Jacob Siegel was president of the Siegel-Lyttle Company. The apartment of newlyweds Harry and Anne Weinberger consisted of a "living room, bedroom, kitchen, dinette and terrace," according to Anne later. Her husband was a fur buyer for Kruskal & Kruskal.
Two views of the sunken living room of the Margaret M. Bischoff apartment in 1939. photo by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.
A much different type of tenant signed a lease in 1941. Born in 1902 in Grodno, Russia (now Belarus), Meyer Lansky was known as the "Mob's Accountant." He was highly involved in the Jewish and Italian mobs and was intimate friends with the likes of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Charles "Lucky" Luciano. He and his wife, the former Anna Citron, had three children: Bernard, Paul and Sandra. In her 2014 book, Daughter of the King - Growing Up In Gangland, Sandra Lansky Lombardo writes, "We moved...to a grand art deco high-rise at 411 West End Avenue. The feature I remember most was the sunken living room, like the dance floor on an ocean liner."
Meyer Lansky in 1958. from the collection of the Library of Congress
The affluence of the residents of 411 West End Avenue was evidenced in a fund raising event on Long Island in the summer of 1943. On July 12, The Sun reported on the "bomber rally" held at Atlantic Beach for the Nassau County War Finance Committee. The highest bidders of War Bonds each received a fragment of a Japanese bomber, "sent from Guadalcanal by an 18-year-old Marine, Edward J. Reiss," said the article. Julius Klorfein, whose family lived at 411 West End Avenue and spent their summers at Atlantic Beach, surpassed everyone. The Sun reported that he "followed a precedent that he had established on similar occasions by purchasing $1,000,000 worth of War Bonds."
Edward Ross delivered groceries to Helen Steinbecker's apartment on June 17, 1949. The New York Age reported, "As she went in the bedroom to get money to pay him, Ross allegedly followed her." When the 20-year-old left, Helen realized two rings, valued at $2,000 (more than $25,000 today) were missing. In an article titled, "Delivering--or Collecting?", the newspaper said Ross admitted to the theft following his arrest.
Perhaps the earliest of the entertainment figures to live at 411 West End Avenue was comedian and actor Phil Leeds. He made his Broadway debut in 1942 in the musical Of V We Sing. His career covered stage, television and motion pictures, including memorable roles later in Rosemary's Baby and The History of the World Part I. While living here in 1955, he was called to testify before Congress's Committee on Un-American Activities.
Interestingly, another resident, actress Myrna Loy, was outspoken in what she called the Congressional Committee's investigation "witch-hunting." She and her husband Howland H. Sargeant lived here by the mid-1950s. Like Leeds, she appeared on stage, screen and television. When she moved into 411 West End Avenue she was an established film star.
Myrna Loy, from the collection of the New York Public Library
Investment advisor Andrew B. Topping and his wife Abigail shared their apartment with Topping's mother, Sophie in 1972. The 27-year-old was described by neighbors as "an extremely reserved person who rarely said more than 'hello' or 'good-by," according to The New York Times, which noted he appeared "to be a young man of substantial means."
On July 4, Abigail came home with their newborn son. Two days later the young mother was dead of what appeared to be a suicide with one of her husband's handguns. A spokesman from the City Medical Examiner's office called Topping's behavior, "bizarre," and Abigail's death "under mysterious circumstances." Topping attributed his wife's death "to forces beyond his control," as reported by The New York Times. In investigating the death, police discovered "four handguns and a rifle with a telescopic sight," in the apartment, for which Topping had no permits.
While the investigation was still ongoing, Andrew B. Topping got into even more trouble. He asked a friend if he could hire a hitman to assassinate President Richard M. Nixon. The acquaintance said he could, and then went directly to the Secret Service. A meeting was set up at the Central Park Boat Basin with the "assassin," undercover agent Stewart J. Henry. During the meeting, arrangements were made to kill Nixon the following week and Topping handed over $1,000 in cash. He was immediately arrested and subsequently sent to prison for "threatening and attempting to kill the president of the United States."
In the meantime, 411 West End Avenue continued to attract residents from the entertainment industry. Among them were screenwriter, producer and director Philip S. Goodman, who was here in the 1980s; stage and screen actress Sandy Dennis; and jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger Gerry Mulligan. Also living here in the 1980s was award-winning author Johanna Kaplan.
photographs by the author
many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post
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