The Altered John Bigelow House - 21 Gramercy Park

 

image via forrent.com

By 1849, Samuel B. Ruggles’ ambitious project of a high-toned residential enclave centered around his Gramercy Square was well underway.  Like Washington Square and St. John’s Park, fine mansions would soon encircle the landscaped park.  Among the earliest of which was the home of Henry Trowbridge at 21 Gramercy Park, erected in 1851.  

Trowbridge was the head of the Henry Trowbridge & Co. drygoods firm at 63 Maiden Lane.  His 26-foot-wide house was four stories tall above a high English basement level.  Its Italianate design included floor-to-ceiling parlor windows that were, most likely, fronted by a cast iron balcony; elliptically arched openings within molded architrave frames; and a bracketed cornice.

Beginning in 1853, the Trowbridges shared the house with Silas Moore Stilwell, his wife, Louisa Caroline Norsworthy, and their two children, Silas Jr. and Harrison.  Stilwell had married Louisa in 1842 when he was 42 years old.  He had served in the New York State Assembly from 1830 to 1833 and had notably proposed the 1831 Stilwell Act, which abolished imprisonment because of debt.

On February 16, 1860, Trowbridge advertised in the New York Morning Courier:

Gramercy Park Property For Sale--The superior four story brown stone front house, No. 21 Gramercy Park, 20th street, next to the corner of Irving Place; built in the best manner expressly for the owner...Possession can be given immediately.  For terms and permission to examine the premises apply to Henry Trowbridge, No. 38 Walker St.

For the next two decades, 21 Gramercy Park would be home to Benjamin J. Curtis, a merchant whose place of business was 15 Park Place.  While the Curtis family lived here, John Bigelow was becoming a major figure in American diplomacy.

Born on November 25, 1817, Bigelow was admitted to the bar in 1838.  In 1849 he joined William Cullen Bryant as editor of the New York Evening Post, a position he held until 1861.  That year President Abraham Lincoln appointed him American Consul in Paris.  Upon the death of Minister to France William L. Dayton in 1864, Bigelow took over that role.

John Bigelow in 1850, the year he married Jane Poultney.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The 1907 Old Buildings of New York City would recall, "While at Paris, he published 'Les Etats-Unis D'Amerique.'  This work corrected the erroneous views of the French as to the relative commercial importance of the Northern and Southern states, and was very effective in discouraging the supposed desire of the French Government for the disruption of the Union."  Bigelow also negotiated with Napoleon III about withdrawing troops from Mexico.

Following the war, Bigelow brought his family back to New York City.  He had married Jane Tunis Poultney in 1850 and they had nine children, six of whom would survive to adulthood.  He was elected Secretary of State of New York in 1872 and served until 1876.  In 1880, the Bigelows moved into 21 Gramercy Park.  Their country home was in Highland Falls, New York. 

The house was the scene of Annie Bigelow's debutante ball in 1882.  She was the couple's third eldest daughter.  The New York Morning Express reported on December 13, "The cotillion was danced, led by Mr. Frank Eldridge and Miss  Jennie Bigelow.  Supper was served shortly after midnight.  Mrs. Bigelow will give a tea on Saturday afternoon." (Jennie, born in 1859, was four years older than her debutante sister.)

 
While her husband continued his diplomatic work and prolific writing, Jane was a major figure in New York society.  On January 8, 1885, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported that she "gave the first of her January receptions yesterday afternoon.  The Misses Annie and Jennie Bigelow assisted in receiving, and about three-hundred guests called." 

Later that year Flora Bigelow married Charles Stuart Dodge.  The newlyweds moved into the Gramercy Park house where daughter Lucie was born in 1890 and John (known as Johnnie) was born in 1894. 

On February 28, 1886, the newspaper reported, "John Bigelow and Miss Bigelow [presumably Grace, the eldest daughter] have sailed from Panama for New York and will arrive at the end of this week.  Mrs. Bigelow gave a dinner of twelve for Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and her daughters yesterday at No. 21 Gramercy Park."

Bigelow's trip to Panama most likely had to do with his staunch support of the concept of the Panama Canal.  He was close friends with French engineer Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who could become instrumental in the construction of the canal.

John returned to New York in time for Jennie's marriage to attorney Charles Edward Tracy in St. George's Church on April 28, 1886.  Afterward, John and Jane hosted a wedding breakfast in the Gramercy Park house.  Among the socially and politically elite guests, according to The New York Times, were the Duke of Sutherland, Whitelaw Reed and his wife, the Pierrepont Morgans, Mr. and Mrs. S. Van Rensselaer Cruger, and Assistant United States District Attorney MacGrane Coxe.

The first hint of Jane's health problems may have come in the fall of 1888.  When a reporter from the New-York Tribune visited the house on November 29, she downplayed her condition.  She said in part, "I have not been very well since my return from Europe, but I wish you would say that I have not been confined to my room at all, and take drives daily in the Park."

But, in fact, she was suffering from Bright's disease, known today as nephritis.  On February 9, 1889, three months after the Tribune's interview, the newspaper reported, "Mrs. John Bigelow died yesterday morning, age sixty, at her home, No. 21 Gramercy Park."  Her funeral was not held in the house, as was customary, but in St. George's Church on Stuyvesant Square.

Annie Bigelow, "the handsome daughter of ex-Minister to France, John Bigelow," as described by the Philadelphia Inquirer, was married to Butler Kenner Harding in the Highland Falls house on October 23, 1889.  The newlyweds moved in with Harding's parents in Philadelphia.  Tragically, Harding contracted influenza around December 28, which developed into pneumonia.  He died on January 6, 1890, just over two months following the wedding.  Annie moved back to 21 Gramercy Park where her daughter, Charlotte, was born.

On Christmas morning 1892, a servant discovered that a thief had made off with much of the family's silver.  The Evening Post reported, "there was no evidence to show that the house had been broken into."  Detectives surmised that the burglar had used a skeleton key to gain entrance.  The article estimated the value of the silver at "from $800 to $1,500," or about $51,800 on the higher end in 2024.

As it turned out, it was a careless servant who was responsible for George Sheridan's being able to walk into the basement entrance.  On the night of December 28, two detectives noticed a young man "lugging a heavy valise, at Delancey Street and the Bowery," according to The New York Times.  They stopped him, and discovered that the suitcase was filled with solid silver items.  When Sheridan could not explain why he had them, he was taken in.  Under intense questioning, he admitted to having stolen the silver from the Bigelow mansion.

He said that at 2 a.m. he was passing the house and noticed the area gate open and the door to the basement unlocked.  He entered, packed up what he could carry in a bag and left.  In addition to what he was taking in the valise to a pawnbroker, the rest of the Bigelow silver was found in his room at a lodging house.

Interestingly, when Jane died, the title of the Gramercy Park house did not go to John, but to Grace.  Therefore, when plans were filed in October 1893 for renovations, she was listed as the owner of record.  It appears that the remodeling (which cost around $350,000 in 2024 money) included the removal of the stoop and the lowering of the entrance to the basement level.  

In 1907, the stoop had already been removed, most likely in the 1893 renovations.  Old Buildings of New York, (copyright expired)

Jennie moved back to the family house in 1896 following the death of Charles Edward Tracy.  Of the three sisters, it was Grace who was the official hostess of 21 Gramercy Park.  When Annie's daughter was introduced to society in 1911, for instance, the New York Press reported on February 2, "Grace Bigelow was one of last night's hostesses, entertaining at dinner at her home, No. 21 Gramercy Park, in compliment of her niece, Charlotte K. Harding.  The dinner was followed by general dancing."

On November 26 that year, The New York Times reported, "John Bigelow, author and diplomat, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, quietly celebrated his ninety-fourth birthday yesterday at his home, 21 Gramercy Park."  The article continued, "There was no celebration.  Mr. Bigelow remaining for most of the day in his library, where he dined at noon with Mrs. Tracy, the other members of the family eating the birthday dinner in the dining room."

The New York Times, December 20, 1911 (copyright expired)

Four days later, the newspaper reported, "John Bigelow, venerable man of letters, diplomatist, and lawyer, died yesterday morning at his home...The bed in which he died was the same old-fashioned four poster in which his wife died thirty years ago."

Around 1902, Flora divorced Charles Stewart Dodge and in 1905 married Lionel Guest, the co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Montreal.  The couple had homes in Montreal and London.  Like many American socialites, Flora had ambitions for her daughter, Lucy, to marry a nobleman.  Lucy, however, had other ideas.  On April 24, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Among the passengers who arrived on the White Star liner Oceanic last night was Miss Lucy Dodge, daughter of Mrs. Lionel Guest, who, having tired of society life in London has come back to live with her aunt, Miss Bigelow, at 21 Gramercy Park."  The article mentioned, "Miss Dodge is a tall and slender blonde, with large blue eyes, and is about 21 years old."

Lucy Dodge had not merely "tired of society life in London."  The following year, The Evening World reported she had not fled London "to escape the merries of a social season...but to prevent the breaking by her mother and stepfather of a secret engagement to Mr. [Walter T.] Rosen."  Lucy had sneaked away from the Guests' London home.  After Scotland Yard found her "living under an assumed name...preparing for a stage career," she escaped to New York and the Bigelow residence.  She was still living with her aunts on July 16, 1914 when The Evening World titled an article, "Lucy Dodge To Wed New York Banker Despite Parents."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The three sisters lived on in the home they had known since 1880.  On March 14, 1921 Annie Bigelow Harding died at the age of 53.  

Grace Bigelow, who never married, traveled extensively. On October 15, 1932, The New York Times titled an article, "Miss Grace Bigelow Dies At Sea At 80."  It noted, "The residence of Miss Bigelow in Gramercy Park is the house in which her father lived for so many years."  Jennie, who would survive until 1956, moved permanently to Highland Falls.  

The Gramercy Park house became home to the National Musical Benefit Society, which gave recitals in the "Main Salon," until May 1946 when the New York Sun reported that the house was sold, "under the will of Grace Bigelow."

image via forrent.com

A renovation completed in 1956 stripped the brownstone, replacing it with a brick mid-century Modern facade.  There were now four apartments per floor.  While the architecture of the venerable house is now unremarkable, its history is anything but.

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Horace Ginsbern's 1941 66 West 88th Street

 

photo by Lowell Cochrane

On May 13, 1940, seven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor would pull America into World War II, The New York Times reported that the Cedot Realty Corporation had purchased "the five parcels at 62 to 70 West Eighty-eighth Street," saying that the plot "has been assembled for an apartment house."

The firm hired Horace Ginsbern to design the structure.  Born in 1902, he was the principal in the architectural firm of Horace Ginsbern & Associates and president of the Horace Realty Company, Inc.  He began designing and building apartment buildings when he was 29 years old, beginning with the Park Plaza Apartments--the first of the Art Deco apartment buildings in the Bronx.

Ginsbern's design for 66 West 88th Street would gravitate more to the "modernistic."  He forwent stepped Art Deco parapets and polychromed doors for a nearly utilitarian plan that anticipated mid-century modern architecture.  A light court separated the building into two masses, its sparse decoration limited to fenestration and the granite-paneled entrance.

Construction was completed in the fall of 1941 and the building filled with professional tenants, like Dr. Manfred Hess, who had received his medical degree in Milan in 1934; and Samuel L. Greitzer, his wife Ethel, and their son Gerald.

Born in Russia on August 10, 1905, Greitzer was brought to America at the age of one.  He graduated from City College of New York in 1927 and later earned his Ph.D. from Yeshiva University.  Greitzer's occupation in 1955 was listed as "mathematics teacher, Yeshiva University and Bronx High School of Science," but that greatly understated his stature in the mathematical community.

Samuel L. Greitzer, from the collection of Rutgers University

Samuel L. Grietzer would go on to teach at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Columbia University and Rutgers University.  Among the books he wrote or co-authored was Geometry Revisited.  He led the U.S. team at the first International Mathematical Olympiads in 1959, and would continued in that role for a decade.  Grietzer was internationally recognized within the mathematics community.

Sisters Hulda Ernestine Macarthy and Osceola Marie Adams shared an apartment by the early 1970s.  Both had fascinating careers and lives.  Natives of Albany, Georgia, Hulda was born on October 7, 1888, and Osceola was born on June 13, 1890.

The girls' father, Charles Hannibal Macarthy, was a trustee of the Colored Academy in Albany, where they received their early education.  In 1903, Hulda entered the Albany Normal School, graduating in 1907.  An accomplished pianist, she was accepted at Fisk University where she majored in music.  After graduation she studied piano at Oberlin College.

For some reason, the musician turned to nursing.  In 1923 she entered nurses' training at St. Louis City Hospital.  She would spend 35 years with the Homer G. Phillips Hospital, rising to Assistant Superintendent of Nurses, notably becoming its first Black nursing instructor.  Osceola attended her Appreciation Banquet on March 17, 1962.

At the time, Hulda's eyesight was failing.  It would worsen to the point of near blindness.  She moved to New York and Osceola's apartment at 66 West 88th Street.  Her condition continued to worsen and she suffered hearing loss and confusion (most likely early dementia), necessitating Osceola's handling of her affairs.  Hulda died in November 1976 at the age of 88.

Like her sister, Osceola attended Fisk University and then Howard University.  While there, she was among 22 founding members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, which would grow to be the largest Black women's organization in the world.  She married the head of Howard University's Chemistry department, Numa Adams, in 1915.

While her husband pursued a career in medicine, Osceola worked as a newspaper columnist, a substitute probation officer and fashion designer for a department store--all the while doing graduate work at the University of Chicago.

In 1929, Numa Adams was appointed the dean of the Howard University Medical School, the first Black dean of any American medical school.  He died on August 29, 1940.  By then, it appears that he and Osceola had separated.  She was living in New York City, having earned her Master's degree in drama in 1936, taking the stage name of Osceola Archer.  

She debuted in Between Two Worlds at the Belasco Theatre in October 1934 playing Rose Henneford, a maid.  Darlene Clark Hine wrote in the 1994 Black Women in America, "Henneford trained as a librarian, was married to a doctor whose career was hurt by discrimination.  The role was not terribly far from Archer's own life."

In 1934, Osceola Archer played in Archibald MacLeish's Panic with Orson Wells and Rose McClendon.  It was choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Virgil Thomson.  She was on tour with The Emperor Jones when her husband died.  

Osceola Adams (original source unknown)

In 1940 Osceola became acting coach and director of the American Negro Theater in Harlem.  Among her students were unknown young actors Ossie Davis, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.  In his autobiography My Song: A Memoir, Belafonte recalls that after Poitier's initial three month trial period...

the ANT's director, Osceola Archer, was disinclined to give him another trial period.  Sidney told me he felt Osceola was racist.  She was very Indian-looking, with long, black thick hair and rather light skin.  Sidney felt strongly that she liked me more than him because my skin was quite a bit lighter than his.  I never saw any evidence of this, and thought Sidney was just oversensitive and vulnerable.

In 1946, Osceola was made resident director of the Putnam County Playhouse, a post she would retain for a decade.  She continued to work in the theater, radio, commercials and television dramas.  A member of the Actor's Equity Committee on Minority Affairs, she fought racial discrimination for decades.  She received an award from the U.S.O. for distinguished service during World War II, and from the mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young, in 1974 for her contributions to American theater.  

On November 24, 1983, The New York Times announced, "Osceola Adams, an actress and teacher of dramatic arts...who also was a founder of the nation's largest black fraternal organization, died in her Upper West Side home Sunday.  She was 93 years old."

photo by Lowell Cochrane

Surprisingly, Horace Ginsbern's casement windows survive.  Resultantly, his 83-year-old building looks almost exactly as it did when the first tenants moved in in September 1941.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for requesting this post

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The Lost James A. Stewart House - 211 West 54th Street

 

D. T. Valentine's Manual, 1865 (copyright expired)

Born in England in 1743, James Alexander Stewart was a prominent New York City merchant.  He and his wife, Sarah Schermerhorn, had four sons, three of whom, William James, Alexander John and John James, survived to adulthood; and two daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth Barr.  Like all monied families, the Stewarts had a "country seat" north of the city.  Theirs was located in today's Midtown district, where the Bloomingdale Road (today's Broadway) cut diagonally through the property.

A portrait of the Stewarts' youngest son, John James, painted by William Joseph Weaver around 1800, attests to the family's affluence.  (private collection)

The wooden, vernacular style house on the property sat between today's Seventh Avenue and Broadway.  In 1804, Stewart laid plans for a more impressive summer house to the west, on the opposite side of the Bloomingdale Road.  He initially offered the current house for sale, advertising on July 26, "Intending to build in the rear of his Country House, will dispose of the present one."  His ad meticulously described the residence and grounds:

The house is very convenient, has two very handsome parlours, with marble fire places, and hung with East India paper; eight bedrooms, two kitchens, a milk room, three store rooms, and two cellars--a cistern that will contain sixteen hogshead water; a well of water in quality equal to any on the Island--these will be sold with the house--a coach-house, stable, cow-house, barn, and a neat house for the gardner [sic]; with forty-five town Lots of one-hundred by twenty-five feet, which includes a very find garden, with a least one hundred bearing fruit trees, of the first quality of fruit; asparagus beds, rasberry [sic], strawberry, gooseberry, and currant bushes.

As it turned out, Stewart leased the property rather than sell it.  He advertised it again in April 1809, noting the estate included, "indeed every convenience requisite."

The Stewarts' eldest son, William James Stewart, would use the house following his marriage to Hannah Hopkins on October 16, 1811.  The groom was 22 years old and the bride was 17.

William's father had backed his new business several years earlier.  On May 16, 1805, an announcement in The Evening Post noted, "William James Stewart, has opened a Wine Store, opposite the Tontine Coffee-House, at the White Stoop."  Saying, "In a short time he will have a general assortment of all kinds of Wine, for sale by the pipe, demijohn or dozen," the notice promised,

The public may depend on all the Madeira Wine that shall be sold from this store shall always be as genuine as when shipt from Madeira, his father, Mr. James A. Stewart, being a judge of Wine will always keep the store supplyed with the best Wines that is imported.

James Alexander Stewart died in 1813 and Sarah Schermerhorn Stewart died the following year.  On March 3, 1815, William's wife, Hannah Hopkins Stewart, died at the age of 21.  

The western portion of the Stewart summer estate was offered for sale in June 1815.  The house that James and Sarah had occupied was described as "an excellent two story dwelling house, suitable for a country residence, which, together with the out houses and garden, will be sold in one lot."

In the meantime, William continued using the original summer home while spending the winter months in his townhouse at 205 Spring Street.

Rather unexpectedly, before his customary mourning period had elapsed, William remarried.  Historian William M. MacBean wrote in his 1856 Biographical Register of Saint Andrew's Society, "On January 29, 1816, he married, at Bloomingdale, Mary, daughter of Joseph Hopkins, who may have been a sister of his first wife."  

William died in the Spring Street house on March 13, 1823.  His funeral was held there on March 15.

William M. MacBean reported that William "left one daughter, Julia, who married in 1833 Frederick A. De Voe, editor of the Republican Watchman."  Interestingly, by 1840 another William James Stewart was occupying the 54th Street house.  It is unclear how he was related to the family if, indeed, MacBean was correct in that Julia was the only child.

This William James Stewart ran a wholesale grocery business at 157 South Street.  In 1851, he was occupying the West 54th Street house as his year-round residence.  (It still did not have an address, listed instead as "West 54th Street near Broadway.")  By then, streets had been laid out (at least on paper) that dissected the Stewart estate, and development had reached into the 40s in some neighborhoods.

Gladys Cook created this watercolor of the Stewart house around 1935, most assuredly based on the D. T. Valentine depiction.  from the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Stewart's anachronistic home had been given the address of 211 West 54th Street by 1863.  He and his family were listed here through 1866, after which they moved to a rowhouse at 438 West 29th Street.  It was most likely soon afterward that the venerable 18th century Stewart residence was demolished.

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The Alfred W. Erickson House - 110 East 35th Street

In 1855, Henry H. Butterworth and Washington A. Cronk completed construction of six narrow homes along the south side of East 35th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues--each slightly different than its fraternal siblings.  Butterworth owned the plots and Cronk, who was a builder, erected the residences.  Four stories tall, their Anglo-Italianate design featured short stoops that led to the double-doored entrances.  Floor-to-ceiling windows graced the second floor levels and individual cornices completed their designs.

Among them was 58 East 38th Street (renumbered 110 in 1868).  Its first owner was Charles Harvey, a dealer in furnaces on Sixth Avenue.  In 1863, his son Willard went into the paper business on Maiden Lane.  The Willard family moved far uptown to 120th Street and Second Avenue the following year.

The John Colton family next occupied the house.  Colton did not list a profession in directories, suggesting he had retired.  Henry Colton, however, was most definitely employed.  In 1856 he opened the Fashion Course on Long Island--a modish race track.  On June 18, 1856, The New York Times commented, "The Club stand opposite to that of the Judges' is fitted up in a fancy style.  To the left of the Club stand is that for ladies and strangers.  Saloons, a reception room, dressing rooms, &c, have been abundantly provided."

Currier & Ives captured "The Celebrated Trotting Horse John Stewart" on Fashion Course around 1868.  from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum

The expense of building and maintaining the Fashion Course was significant.  On June 23, 1860, The New York Times commented, "To Mr. Henry Colton are we New-Yorkers indebted for this racy carnival; but which we are sorry to say, has not been patronized to an extent which will remunerate him for the great outlay he has incurred."  

Eventually, it seems, Colton was forced to liquidate.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on March 1, 1870 read, "$7000--To Rent or Lease, Fashion Course, or for sale, with all the improvements.  For further information apply to D. C. Grinnell, on the premises, or to H. Colton, 110 East Thirty-fifth st."

The Colton family remained through 1872, after which 110 East 35th Street became home to Kenney Couillard, Jr. and his wife, the former Clara Cole.  Born in Bucksport, Massachusetts in 1814, Captain Couillard was a member of the Council of American Shipmasters' Association, and a member of the Finance Committee of the Seamen's Fund and Retreat on Staten Island.

Captain Kenney Couillard, Jr. died on April 28, 1874.  His funeral was held in the house on March 2 at 4:00.  Clara Couillard left the following year.  On September 5, 1876, an announcement in The New York Times read, "Miss M. A. Clark will reopen her school for young ladies and children, at No. 110 East 35th st., Sept. 25.  Applications, personally or by letter, will be received at the above place from 12 to 6 P.M."

Miss M. A. Clark's English and French School for Young Ladies and Little Girls did not last especially long at the address.  On August 22, 1878, an advertisement in the New York Herald offered, "Murray Hill--To Lease to private family, small brown stone House, beautiful order throughout."

In 1880, the family of Frank H. Norton occupied the house, possibly leasing it from James P. Cloherty.  Norton was an editor, playwright and author.

James P. and Susan Cloherty and their adult daughter Lizzie occupied the house the following year.  Interestingly, while the family was involved in education--Susan and Lizzie Cloherty were teachers and James as assistant principal of Evening School No. 38--they were obviously affluent.  An inventory of the house in 1887 included, "rich household furniture, made by Marcotte, Roux and other celebrated makers," and in 1894 James P. Cloherty loaned the portrait of Princess Charlotte by Thomas Gainsborough to an exhibition at the National Academy of Design for the benefit of the St. John's Guild and Orthopaedic Hospital.

By then, however, Susan Cloherty had died and in 1888 James had sold the house to attorney Charles Howland Russell.  He was a partner in Stetson, Jennings & Russell.  Born in 1851 to Caroline Howland and Charles H. Russell, he graduated from the Columbia Law School in 1874.  A bachelor, he shared the house with his unmarried brother, S. Howland Russell.

Like the Clohertys, the brothers filled the house with fine art.  In 1890, S. Howland Russell donated the emotionally moving painting Heart's Ease, painted by William Parsons Winchester Dana in 1863, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Heart's Ease.  from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1890, Charles married Jane Brinsmade Potter, the daughter of Bishop Henry C. Potter.  Two years later, on April 19, 1892, S. Howland Russell died at the age of 39.  Charles and Jane sold 110 East 35th Street in 1899.

The house became the center of social attention in 1900.  Mrs. Pauline F. Baring was living here on October 8 when her engagement to Baron F. Ortmans de Senechal of Paris was announced in The New York Times.  The article might have raised the eyebrows of neighbors on East 35th Street when it mentioned, "Mrs. Baring, whose first husband was a relative of the English bankers of that name, came here from London three years ago and bought a house at 110 East Thirty-fifth Street, where she has since resided."

The Times said, "Baron de Senechal is a bachelor, thirty-nine years old, and comes from an ancient French house...This is his first visit to the United States, and he met his bride-to-be in this city only a few months ago."

Two days later, The New York Times published a follow-up article, which said the announcement...

has created something of a sensation among the members of the Calumet Club, where the Baron has been received as a guest for several months past.  According to several members the announcement caused apparently as much surprise to the Baron himself as to his friends in the club.  It was said at the club last night that the Baron had in a rage stated that the announcement was made by Mrs. Baring entirely without his authorization; that no engagement existed; and that no marriage would take place.

The article added further mystery by saying, "Little was known about Mrs. Baring, except that she was known for a time as Mrs. Blackmar."  It mentioned, "The Baron was inaccessible to reporters last night.  Mrs. Baring refused to see reporters who called."  The wedding, not unexpectedly, did not take place and the enigmatic Pauline Baring quickly moved on.

The house was purchased by Charles Clerc Deming.  Like Charles Howland Russell, he was a bachelor and an attorney.  And like Russell, he married soon after moving in.  On June 4, 1902, he married Mabel Frances Wilson in Hartford, Connecticut.

Deming earned his law degree at Columbia Law School in 1875.  In 1892 he was elected vice-president of the Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad Company.  He was a partner in the law firm of Alexander & Green.

It was not uncommon for monied New Yorkers to lease their homes occasionally during the winter social season.  But it appears that the Demings never occupied the East 35th Street house in the winter.  Year after year they leased it.  Robert Van Cortlandt and his wife, for instance, occupied the house every winter season from 1902 through 1905.  Samuel Milbanks and his wife leased the house each winter from 1916 through 1921 when they moved into their newly-built house at 117 East 65th Street.

It was not only during the winter season that the Demings traveled.  On June 17, 1922, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Deming of 110 East Thirty-fifth Street, are sailing today on the Lapland for a three months' tour of England, Scotland and Germany."

The house was purchased by Alfred W. and Anna E. Erickson around 1926.  Erickson was the owner of an advertising agency.  He would later co-found the agency McCann-Erickson, one of the largest advertising firms in the world.  The couple hired the architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich to make interior and exterior alterations.

Delano & Aldrich's alterations did not greatly effect the exterior.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house where a Thomas Gainsborough once hung was about to receive an even greater masterpiece.  On November 12, 1928, Alfred Erickson purchased Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer from the Duveen gallery.  According to Joseph Heller in his article "The Last Laugh" in the September 1988 issue of The Connoisseur, "The price was $750,000."  (That amount would translate to about $1.9 million in 2024.)

According to Heller, Duveen lamented, "I am really losing money by selling it so cheaply now, for certainly it soon will be worth very much more."  

Erickson could not have foreseen the Stock Market crash that was to come the following year.  Exactly two years to the day after buying the painting, Erickson was back at Duveen's on November 12, 1930 to sell it.  When Duveen offered $500,000--a quarter of a million less than Erickson had paid--the ad man complained, "You assured me that the work would increase in value."

Joseph Heller wrote, "'These are difficult times now, Mr. Erickson,' responded Duveen.  'We are living in the Great Depression.'"

Erickson reportedly answered, "I think I know that."

Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer was the centerpiece of the Erickson collection.  from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The masterwork never was far from Erickson's thoughts.  He returned to Duveen in February 1936, having recovered financially, and re-purchased the Rembrandt for $590,000, "the difference of $90,000 representing charges for interest and the New York sales, tax," according to Heller.

Alfred W. Erickson died on November 2, 1936.  He left the house and its magnificent collection of art--the highlight of which, of course, was the Rembrandt--to Anna.

Anna E. Erickson died in the East 35th Street house in 1961.  A public sale of the art collection was held later that year at the Parke-Bernet Galleries.  The 24 paintings were expected to "bring at least $3,000,000."  Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer was sold within four minutes to the Metropolitan Museum of art for $2.3 million.

After having been home to monied families for more than a century, in 1963 the basement and first floor of 110 East 35th Street were converted to classrooms for the Adams School.  The top three floors were "to be occupied by owner exclusively," according to the Department of Buildings.  One of the school's three locations, 110 East 35th Street was the "lower school" for children aged 6 through 12.  An advertisement in 1974 explained the classes focused on "learning disabilities, perceptual problems" and "the emotional or unmotivated."

Another renovation completed in 1984 replaced the school portion of the house with a private club.  Then, in 2002, it was returned to a single family home.

photograph by the author 

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The Herman LeRoy House - 80 Washington Place

 

When Jacob LeRoy moved into the new 22-foot-wide brick house at 19 West Washington Place (renumbered 80 Washington Place in 1881), the Washington Square neighborhood was rapidly developing into one of the most exclusive residential enclaves in Manhattan.  

LeRoy was leasing the house from builder William W. Berwick.  It was one of two identical houses Berwick erected in 1838 (he moved into the other one), and its Greek Revival design was the latest word in domestic taste.  Three stories tall above a brownstone English basement, its stone stoop led to a double-doored entrance flanked by heavy brownstone pilasters that upheld an entablature and cornice.

Born in 1758, LeRoy was appointed Consul-General for Holland in 1786.  Two decades later, he founded LeRoy, Bayard & Co. with his brother-in-law, William Bayard.  It became the largest international trading firm in New York.  He was, as well, a director in the Bank of the United States and president of the Bank of New York.  Jacob married Hannah Cornell in 1786.  The couple had 10 children who lived to adulthood.  Their country home was in Pelham, New York, and Herman LeRoy owned massive amounts of land in western New York.

Hannah Cornell LeRoy had died in 1818, two decades before LeRoy purchased the Washington Place house.  Living with him here were at least two of his children--his unmarried daughter Mary, who was 38 at the time; and Herman Jr., his wife, Juliet, and their two children, Herman Cornell and Anson Van Horne.

Herman LeRoy Sr. died in 1841 and by 1845, his family had moved to 25 Washington Place.  William Berwick now leased 19 West Washington Place to George H. Moore, the head of the silkgoods firm George H. Moore & Co.  In 1849, William D. Greene, who worked in the tax receiving department in the new City Hall, leased the house, and in 1856, the year William Berwick died, Mary Harvey lived here with her son, Robert H. J. Harvey.  Mary was the widow of Robert J. Harvey, and her son was in the express business at 72 Broadway.

By the early 1870s, 19 West Washington Place was being operated as a high-end boarding house.  It seems to have been a favorite of well-heeled young men attending Columbia College.  In 1871, student Frederick Aycrigg Pell, who lived in Passaic, New Jersey, boarded here; and the following year The College Courant reported, "John W. Andrews, recently returned from abroad and is in the Columbia Law School.  Address 19 W. Washington Place, N. Y."

A Miss Erskin ran the boarding house by the late 1880s.  Her tenants in 1890 included Augustus W. B. Garrison, who arcanely listed his profession as "piano."

On April 15, 1895, The World published an extensive article on the Beef Trust--a group of meat packing companies that had formed an alliance to control prices.  The headline read, "Boarders Suffer Next / Another Turn of the Beef Trust Screw Will Raise Rates of Boarding-Houses."  The journalist had interviewed several boarding house proprietors, including Miss Erskin.  She said the "only hope was in an aroused public sentiment against the beef combine."

Among the boarders here in the first years of the 20th century was editor Edith Lewis.  Beginning in 1908, fledgling author and Willa Cather began sharing Lewis's rooms.  David Porter, in his 2015 "Historical Essay" addendum to Cather's Lucy Gayheart writes, "After Cather returned to New York in 1908 and began living with Edith Lewis at 80 Washington Place, Lewis wrote, 'we went often to the opera, sitting high up, in the cheap seats.'"  Cather would win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1923 for One of Ours.  The two women would live together for nearly four decades, until Cather's death in 1947.

Edith Lewis and Willa Cather typified the erudite boarders at 80 Washington Place.  In 1916, John Horace Mariano lived here (and would remain at least until 1921).  A graduate of Columbia University, he was the Assistant Director of Community Service and Research at New York University.  He was, as well, a member of the American Sociological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  

Also living here in 1917 was philosopher Clifford W. Cheasley, and the following year two New York University students, Bruce Ford Bundy and Claire Elain Foster rented rooms.

On December 7, 1912, The Sun had published a succinct article saying that Helen Sousa, daughter of bandleader John Philip Sousa, and Hamilton Abert had taken out a marriage license.  "The wedding will be at St. Thomas's Church on December 17," it said.  Five years later, on July 5, 1919, the Record & Guide reported,

Lieutenant John Philip Sousa, U. S. N. bandmaster, has joined the colony in the Greenwich Village section.  Lieutenant Sousa, who is soon to reassemble his band for concert work, is to live on Washington pl. about half a block west of Washington sq.  He signed a contract for the purchase of the 3-sty house at 80 Washington pl, and his plans are to alter it into a fine home with a passenger elevator in it.

If, indeed, Sousa and his wife Jane actually had ever intended to remodel 80 Washington Street for their own home, they quickly changed their minds.  On August 27, Sousa transferred title to Hamilton Abert for $100.

Abert hired architect Charles Volz in October to remodel the house to apartments.  The stoop was removed and the entrance (including the Greek Revival enframement) were lowered to the English basement level, a few steps below the sidewalk.  A fourth story was added with a large studio window.  In place of a cornice, Volz gave the building a brick parapet with a projecting canopy.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The renovations were completed in January 1920.  An ad offered two rooms with bath and kitchenette and boasted, "Electric light, steam heat, elevator; everything absolutely modern.  Up to date plumbing, built-in tub."  Rents ranged from $900 to $1,500 per year--about $1,900 a month today for the most expensive.

Hamilton and Helen Sousa Abert lived in the building in what was assuredly larger than a two-room suite.  Born in 1885, Hamilton had prepared for college at St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire and graduated from Yale in 1906.  He was a stockbroker and secretary of the Manhattan Rubber Mfg. Co.

In May 1920, the Aberts advertised for help.  "Cook and chambermaid-waitress, white, to do laundry between them; apartment, two in family.  Call Abert."  And as they prepared to go to their summer home, they advertised:

Couple, white, useful, butler and chambermaid; 3 in family; Long Island.  Call Abert, after 3 Thursday, 80 Washington place, near Washington square.

The mention of a third family member was no doubt a typo.  The couple's only child, Hamilton Sousa Albert, was born in 1919 but did not survive infancy.

Among the Aberts' early tenants was Rev. John A. Wade.  His name appeared in The Evening World for an act of St. Francis-like compassion on October 7, 1921.  The newspaper said, "Some time after midnight, when all the city excepting Greenwich Village was presumably asleep, a band of chilled and travel-worn woodpeckers, weak from hunger, fluttered to the ground in Washington Square."  One of them, "wobbled into the air and went foraging."  The article said it "must have been a wise bird, or else a lucky one, for he flew into an open window at No. 80 Washington Place."

Rev. Wade was aroused from his sleep, thinking there was a burglar in the room.  The weakened bird did not attempt to flee when he turned on the light.  "I fed him some cracker crumbs, which he devoured ravenously--or woodpeckerously," recounted the clergyman.  "Then I dressed and took him out to the park, where I knew I would find [Police Officer] McCarthy."  While the officer kept neighborhood cats away from the birds, Rev. Wade went for a loaf of bread.  "We broke it into crumbs and the woodpeckers hurled themselves upon the breakfast like a flock of farmyard chickens," he said.  "Gradually they regained their strength and spirts.  At dawn they flew away."

At some point following Hamilton Abert's death in 1957, title to 80 Washington Place was transferred to John Philip Sousa, Inc.  In 1970, five years before Helen's death, the corporation sold the building to the Cin-Cin Realty Corp.

In 2013, 80 Washington Place was returned to a single family home after a gut renovation by Clodagh Design.  Around 2017, it became home to celebrity couple Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott and appeared in a 2023 episode of The Kardashians.  In February 2024, it was sold after being listed for just under $20 million.

photographs by the author

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Henry J. Hardenbergh's 1889 121 East 89th Street

 

The socially prominent Rhinelander family traced its American roots to Philip Jacob Rhinelander, who arrived in the New World in 1686.  In 1886, an offal dock sat on Rhinelander land at the northwest corner of 89th Street and Lexington Avenue.  (An offal dock was where the waste from slaughter houses and the carcasses of dead horses and other animals were brought to await removal by the city.)  Two years, later, the Estate of William C. Rhinelander replaced the odorous facility by hiring architect Henry Janeway Hardenberg to design six private homes on Lexington Avenue and a four-story flat building around the corner at 121 East 89th Street.

Hardenberg had designed the impressive Dakota apartment building at 1 West 72nd Street eight years earlier.  This flat building would be considerably less ambitious, but nonetheless architecturally striking.  Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta, Hardenberg drew on Northern Renaissance prototypes for his design, while sprinkling it with Queen Anne elements.  The fourth floor sprouted phoenix-like from a swagged cornice and broken pediment above the two-story mid-section.  Its window was flanked by Doric pilasters and capped by a triangular pediment.  Two terra cotta rondels embellished the vertical parapet that took the place of a terminal cornice.

The 20-foot-wide structure was completed in 1889.  Its four apartments--one per floor--filled with financially comfortable families.  

Among the first were Samuel R. Ives and his wife, the former Frances Louisa Way.  Ives was born in Ohio in 1835 and married Frances in 1861.  Although he was just 54 years old when the couple moved into the new building, Ives was already retired.  Unfortunately, he would not enjoy his new apartment for long.  He and Frances went to Matamoras, Pennsylvania (just across the River from Port Jervis, New York) for the summer in July 1890.  Ives died there on August 1.

Francis Marion Tichenor and his wife, the former Elizabeth R. Cornell, were also original tenants.  Francis was born in 1840 and Elizabeth in 1846.  They were married on October 8, 1879.  Like the Rhinelanders, Francis Tichenor traced his American roots to the 17th century, his original ancestor, Martin Tichenor arriving in the New Haven Colony prior to 1644.  Francis was a respected attorney, having been admitted to the bar in Newark in 1866.

Elizabeth lost an interesting piece of Victorian jewelry in January 1891, most likely on a shopping trip.  Her advertisement in the New York Herald on January 10 was detailed:

Lost--In the vicinity of 14th St., a gold Bracelet, two animal heads, diamond eyes and small diamond in mouth of one animal; liberal reward.  Mrs. F. M. Tichenor, 121 East 89th st.

She advertised again later that year.  This time she was looking for domestic help.  Her ad in the New-York Tribune on September 26 read, "Housework--A young girl to do general housework in small family; one to sleep home preferred.  Tichenor."

While the Tichenors preferred that their maid did not live with the family (almost assuredly their cook did), the Reautchleck family's servant girl did.  The arranagement landed Andrew Reautchleck in jail on March 29, 1892.  The Evening World explained he, "was held in Harlem Court to-day charged with having last night forced an entrance to the bedroom of Mary McGinty, a servant in the same house."

Edward P. Phelps and his family lived here by 1893.  Phelps was the auditor for the Denver Iron and Coal Company at 51 Wall Street.  That summer, he hired Frank Guinevan to paint the apartment.  When Guinevan left on June 11, Phelps quickly noticed that his valise was missing.  Inside were valuable business papers, including four United Coal Company mortgage bonds and three shares of the company's stock--worth a total of $4,300 (about $150,000 in 2024).

Phelps reported the theft and Guinevan was arrested on June 15.  The Sun reported, "When searched at the Police Headquarters all the bonds and stocks were found in his possession."

The Bennetts lived at 121 East 89th Street by 1894.  On September 13 that year, The New York Press somewhat callously reported, "Twas a mosquito gave an estate of $6,500 to Mrs. Agnes R. Bennett of No. 121 East Eighty-ninth street.  Her husband, a traveling man, was bitten by one and died from it on August 13.  The will was probated yesterday."  Bennett's estate would translate to about a quarter of a million in today's dollars.

Timothy J. Bresnan, a retired fire chief, and his wife moved in around 1902.  Bresnan received a yearly pension of about $60,300 by today's terms.  

On June 6, 1909, the couple went on a day trip to Rockaway Beach.  Their excursion would end dramatically.  The next morning The New York Times reported that Bresnan "stood in the roadway with his wife, at Highland Avenue and the Boulevard...at 11:45 o'clock last night, waiting for a trolley car to take them home."

Just as the trolley approached, a speeding, chauffeur-driven automobile with four passengers "came whirling toward them."  Bresnan pushed his wife to the curb and jumped in the opposite direction onto the trolley car.  The Times said, "The automobile glided between Mr. Bresnan and his wife, both narrowly escaping being run down."  A short distance up the block, the chauffeur stopped the car.  When he saw the irate Bresnan running toward him, he tried to restart the automobile, but the former fire chief was too quick for him.  He "jumped to the running board, and, with a vigorous swing, hit him in the face."

"That's for trying to run us down," Bresnan said.

Bresnan returned to his wife and boarded the trolley.  As it passed the automobile, the chauffeur, "one of his eyes beginning to swell," jumped aboard.  He and Bresnan "engaged in a lively fight."  The article said, "The passengers, many of them women, were in a panic."  Eventually, the chauffeur said he had had enough excitement for the night and jumped off.  "Ex-Chief Bresnan says he got the number of the automobile," reported The New York Times.

Among the Bresnans' neighbors were the Leopold Birnbaums. Both were born in Hungary in 1844.  They were married in 1861 and immigrated to New York with their five children in 1882.  Leopold Birnbaum was an accomplished engraver when he arrived.  Rather than working for a larger firm, he opened his own practice.  His clients included some of the leading jewelers of the city before his retirement in 1896.

The Birnbaums.  New York Herald, April 28, 1911 (copyright expired)

The Birnbaum apartment was well-filled on the night of April 28, 1911 in celebration of the couple's 50th anniversary.  The New York Herald reported, "A family dinner will be held in the evening, at which their five children and twelve grandchildren will be present.  To-morrow a reception will be held for friends."

The following year resident Harry Stillings suffered public embarrassment.  Early in July, he dropped into Frank Abrahall's saloon at 545 Third Avenue.  He had been preceded by what The New York Times called, "two visits to Abrahall's saloon of a police 'stool pigeon.'"  Suddenly, Police Lieutenant Becker's "Strong Arm" squad burst into the saloon and arrested Abrahall; his bartender, William Sheridan; and Harry Stillings as "common gamblers."    

Happily for Stillings (but not before his reputation had been tarnished), two weeks later, on July 21, The New York Times reported that he had been released "for lack of evidence against him and because he did not fit the description" in the informant's affidavit.

The floor-engulfing apartments continued, for the most part, to be occupied by respectable families.  Joseph Root and his wife lived here in the 1920s.  Mrs. Root was corresponding secretary of the East Side Clinic for Women and Children.  

Before it was painted, the facade's mixture of brick, brownstone and terra cotta created a contrast in color.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In the 1940s, Gordon S. Ierardi and his wife, the former Jean Coburn, lived here.  Ierardi graduated from Harvard in 1939 and initially joined the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.  In 1940 he moved to John Wiley & Sons, Inc. where he would become "one of the foremost psychology editors in the nation," according to The New York Times.  Eventually, he would rise to the position of assistant vice president of the firm.

The building was renovated in 1984, although the configuration of one apartment to a floor was preserved.  It was possibly at that time that the red brick façade was painted white.  Other than that and replacement windows, Hardenberg's delightful flat building is outwardly little changed.

photographs by the author

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