The 1901 Emil Loeb House - 272 West 91st Street

 

In 1897, eight high-stooped brownstone houses were erected on the east side of West End Avenue between 90th and 91st Street--leaving the two corners vacant.  Two years later, the Realty Improvement Co. hired architect Hugh Lamb to design bookend-like mansions on the corners.  Behind each of the West End Avenue homes would be another mansion and, like those on the avenue, they would be mirror-images of one another.

Lamb filed plans in December 1899.  Construction would take two years and cost the equivalent of $925,000 each in 2024 terms. Like its twin on 90th Street, 272 West 91st Street was clad in red brick above a rusticated limestone base.  The Renaissance Revival design included a dignified portico with paired Scamozzi columns.  It was surmounted at the second floor by an arresting Palladian-style window.  A pair of arched openings at this level were centered over the service entrance.  Splayed lintels with layered keystones distinguished the third floor windows.  By separating the fourth and fifth floors with a prominent, bracketed cornice, Lamb created the visual proportions of a four-story mansion.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The mansion was sold in July 1903 to John D. Walton, whose ownership would be short.  He resold it on August 12, 1905 to Emil and Blanche Pulaski Loeb.

Born in Germany in 1864, Emil Loeb arrived in America at the age of 17.  In 1889 he joined with A. B. Loveman and Moses Joseph to form the Birmingham, Alabama department store Loveman, Joseph & Loeb.  It would become the largest department store south of the Ohio River.  Although still associated with the firm, Loeb brought his family to New York City around the time he purchased 272 West 91st Street.

Blanche was born in Philadelphia in 1873 and married Emil Loeb in 1897.  The couple had a son, Louis Melville, born in 1898.  The year they moved into 272 West 91st Street, a daughter, Madeleine H. was born.

It appears the Loebs took an extended trip, almost assuredly to Europe, in 1914.  They advertised the 42-foot wide mansion for rent in August that year, noting, "every room facing the front, three modern baths; electric lights, with beautiful fixtures."  The rent of $2,500 per year would translate to $6,550 a month today.

Like the children of other well-heeled families, Louis and Madeleine attended high-status schools.  Louis graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1915.  He immediately entered Yale University, but temporarily left to serve in the field artillery of the U.S. Army during World War I.  He graduated from Yale in 1919 and enrolled at Columbia Law School that year.

On November 13, 1921, The New York Times reported on the elections of officers of the classes of 1922 and 1923 of the Columbia Law School.  Louis Melville Loeb had been elected treasurer.  He would go on to be a partner in the law firm of Cook, Nathan, & Lehman and the general counsel for The New York Times.  In 1956 he would become president of the New York City Bar Association.

Madeleine, too, would have a successful career.  After graduating from Vassar College, she was a feature writer for Musical Digest Magazine and later conducted a weekly radio program, "Women Review the News."   She did national publicity for a number of organizations, including Anne Morgan's museum for Franco-American cooperation.  Never married, she eventually became a journalist with The New York Times.

In the meantime, Dr. Charles Spivacke purchased 272 West 91st Street in June 1922.  The widowed physician was born in Russia in 1877 and came to America in the 1890s.  He obtained his medical degree from Cornell University in 1899.  By now, he was a leading specialist on allergies and asthma.  

Also living in the house were his two children, Harold and Lucia, and his widowed mother, Taube Spivak. (When Charles changed the spelling of his surname is unclear.)  Taube died in the house on June 26, 1925 and her funeral was held in the drawing room two days later.

Harold Spivacke would have a stellar career.  After receiving his Masters degree from New York University in 1924, he received his Ph.D. magna cum laude at the University of Berlin in 1933.  In 1934 he was appointed Assistant Chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress and three years later was promoted to Chief.

Dr. Charles A. Spivacke died on November 21, 1943.  His funeral was held in the West End Funeral Chapel on West 91st Street on the 24th.  In reporting his death, The New York Sun recalled that he "aided in the organization of the allergy clinic of the Lebanon Hospital and directed it into becoming one of the largest in the city."  He was, as well, a former president of the New York Physicians Association.

No. 272 West 91st Street continued as a single family residence.  By the late 1970s, it was home to the Moses Dyckman family.  Dyckman operated a jewelry store at 79 West 47th Street.

Every morning before going to work, Dyckman attended the 6:45 services at the synagogue in the basement of 646 West End Avenue, just north of 91st Street.  He would not make it there on September 15, 1981.  That morning the superintendent of the apartment building at 646 West End Avenue saw the 86-year-old crossing the street when a green sedan pulled up and two men forced him in.

The kidnappers took Dyckman (described by the building super as "thin, rather frail") to an abandoned building on East 132nd Street where he was bound, gagged, and tied to a chair with a paper bag over his head.  But they were seen entering the building by neighbors, some of whom investigated after the men left.  The New York Times reported that they "heard Mr. Dyckman moaning, and removed him from the building.  One of them then called the police."

Unaware that Dyckman had been rescued, the kidnappers continued calling his home, eventually negotiating a drop-off point and a scaled-down ransom amount.  News coverage tipped off the crooks and they temporarily escaped capture.  But on October 7, 1981, The New York Times reported that two men had been arrested and a third, whose identity the police knew, was being sought.

A renovation begun in 2019 stripped every inch of historic detail from the interior of the Loeb mansion.  Elegant  staircases, stone mantels, and decorative woodwork were trashed.  Completed in 2023, the remodeling left only the front facade--protected because the house sits within a historic district--intact.

photographs by the author

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