The Richmond - 153 East 88th Street

 

The extended Rhinelander family traced its American roots to Philip J. Rhinelander, who arrived in 1689.  William Rhinelander established a "summer seat" on the Upper East Side in 1798 and the family's holdings were augmented over the decades.  In the 1880s, individual family members began developing the properties they had inherited along East 88th and 89th Streets.  Laura V. Rhinelander owned the land at 153 East 88th Street as early as 1887.  Within three years she had replaced the stable on the site with a four-story flat building.

Called The Richmond, the Renaissance Revival structure was faced in sandy-colored brick.  The arched openings of the first floor contrasted with the flat-headed windows of the upper stories.  Brick piers at the top floor were capped with ornate terra cotta capitals.  A parapet sat atop the understated, dentiled cornice.  The heavy, ornamental railings guarded the short stoop were nearly outdone by the intricately scrolled fire escape railings.

Close inspection reveals the ornate ironwork that still survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

There were two apartments per floor, each with a bathroom and steam heat.  An advertisement in The Evening Post on April 30, 1892 read:

"The Richmond," 153 East 88th St.--Cosey unfurnished apartments to rent to small families of adults; good management; rents, $31 to $33; very genteel; only eight apartments in house.

The more expensive rent would translate to about $1,140 per month in 2024.  The management was intent that the Richmond remained respectable.  Three years after the above ad intimated that no children were allowed, another in The New York Times offered apartments, "to let to clerks, salesmen, bookkeepers and genteel families."

Stockbroker William Hubbard and his wife lived here in 1899 and took in a boarder, E. Fox Leonard.  Leonard did not come home on July 1 that year and the following day The New York Morning Telegraph reported, "The young man found in a Thirty-ninth street flat, stupid from the effects of opium, died at 1:30 o'clock last night at Roosevelt Hospital."  Leonard had gone to an opium den run by two women.  The article said, "In the flat where the young man was found was an elaborate layout such as is used by opium smokers."

The residents of The Richmond were comfortably middle-class and owning a motorcar--an expensive luxury at the turn of the century--was not out of the question.  But one resident may have been operating a scam of sorts.  On November 14, 1908, an advertisement in The New York Times read:

Because I am going abroad I must sell at once my two fine 3-0 H. P. Studebaker touring cars. These are great bargains and in splendid condition.  An excellent opportunity to get a high-grade car cheap.  For further particulars address V. A. Villard, 153 East 88th Street, city.

Why Villard would have two touring cars or how he could afford such an expense is suspect.

Laura Perring lived here at the time.  Her apartment doubled as her studio where she taught voice and piano.  An ad in January 1909 offered, "The art of ballad and song singing correctly taught.  Also piano.  Special attention given to beginners.  Church singers coached.  Accompanying."

John Downing lived here and was the building's janitor by 1911 when he got himself in serious trouble with Mrs. Kate Bedingfield, who lived on Lexington Avenue.  There was a fenced lot next to 153 East 88th Street.  On April 11, 1911, The Evening World suggested, "A vacant lot, surrounded by a high fence, holds out its allurements next to the flat house.  Small boys have made bold to climb the fence and play."  Downing, described by the newspaper as "six feet tall, forty-five years of age," seems to have appointed himself custodian of the lot, as well.

Downing had caught a group of boys, including Kate Bedingfield's 11-year-old son, George, clambering over the fence.  He struck George on the back and legs with a broomstick.  George ran home and told his mother, who had John Downing arrested for disorderly conduct.

Kate and George Bedingfield faced off with Downing in Magistrate Steinert's courtroom on April 10.  It did not go well for Downing.  Steinert said to him:

You are a brute.  A man like you and as old as you are ought to know better.  You ought to know that we have to put up with a good many things from these little fellows nowadays.  They have few places to play, and when they see a vacant lot they are going to take charge of it.

Downing was fined $300.  The Evening World reported, "And now the small boy population of the upper east side is ready to make Steinert President or let him carry the bats for the Giants."

A fascinating resident was archeologist Ambrose Lansing.  Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1891, his wife was the former Caroline Cox.  Although he was just 28 years old in 1919, Lansing had made an important mark in Egyptian archeology.  On August 14 that year, the New York Herald began an article saying, "Important additions to the treasures of Egyptian art in the Metropolitan Museum will be made as soon as the material excavated by Ambrose Lansing, of the Museum's archaeological staff, reaches this country from the banks of the Nile."  During his four-year expedition, Lansing had discovered the tomb of Pedu Bost, "ruler of Thebes, then the capital of Egypt, about 700 B. C.," as well as that of a high priest in Luxor.

Ambrose Lansing, original source unknown

Lansing, who arrived home on August 13, had packed up 30 cases of artifacts for shipment to the museum.  The New York Herald noted, "An interesting feature of the work done by Mr. Lansing at Thebes was the discovery of inscriptions showing definitely that the reigning queen of upper Egypt at the time was Amenirdis."

Equally interesting was Anna L. Fisher, who lived here in 1927. In 1918, she was sent by the Red Cross Commission to Palestine, and in 1920 worked with the American Red Cross in Damascus.  Because of her work there, "Mrs. Fisher was appointed a Captain in the Arabian Cavalry, and with her rank she received a beautiful Arabian mare, the personal gift of Emir Feisal," reported The New York Times. 

In 1922, Fisher took on a new role, becoming manager of the restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Now, in the fall of 1927, she was packing up her apartment in preparation for a move to the Middle East.  On November 27, The New York Times reported she, "has been appointed by the Iraq Government to be an attaché of the Ministry of Education in that country, and to engage in social work among the Arabs."

Fisher told a reporter from The Times, "I am very much attached to King Feisal.  He is a great man, exceptionally broadminded, and he has vision.  The Arabs are very fine people and I enjoy my work with them."

In June 1933, Philip Rhinelander sold 153 East 88th Street to Louise M. Clews.  A renovation completed in 1966 resulted in a doctor's office suite on the first floor.  It may have been at this time that the ornate Victorian fire escapes and stoop railings were replaced with less interesting examples.  There are still two apartments per floor above the first floor.

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The 1864 Isaac L. Devoe House - 134 East 36th Street

Developers George J. Hamilton and Thomas Kilpatrick began construction of a trio of stylish, brownstone fronted houses at 130-134 East 36th Street in 1863.  Just 17.2-feet wide, 134 East 36th Street had the advantage of a corner site, giving it three exposures of light and ventilation.  The home's cutting edge Second Empire style included the nearly obligatory slate-shingled mansard.  The molded, architrave surrounds of the windows sat on bracketed sills.

Completed in 1864, the house was purchased as an investment by wealthy merchant Robert W. Milbank.  He leased the house until 1867 when it was purchased by Isaac L. Devoe.   

Born in Westchester, New York in 1813, Devoe was the principal of the glass firm Isaac L. Devoe & Co. at White and Centre Streets.  He married Mary Ann Harsen in 1841.  The couple had three sons, born every two years like clockwork--Henry I., born in 1842; Theodore, born in 1844; and Frank who arrived in 1846.  

The Financial Panic of 1873 was a devastating economic catastrophe--called the Great Depression by some until 1929.  It would last until 1879 and may have been the reason that Devoe drastically changed his business--from glass to wool.  For whatever reason, the switch was unsuccessful.  On September 1, 1878, The New York Times reported that Devoe had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy.  Reporting that his liabilities were $25,000 (about $788,000 in 2024), the article said, "He has no assets."

Isaac and Mary Devoe lost their home to foreclosure.  It was acquired by Dr. Edwin M. Kellogg and his second wife, the former Frances (known as Fanny) Anne Bowen.  

Dr. Kellogg was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on September 20, 1826.  He married Louise H. Chur on April 16, 1867.  His bride died 11 months later at the age of 27.  He and Fanny were married on October 11, 1869.  

Kellogg served on the staff of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College as Professor of the Diseases of Women.  He was also the treasurer of the American Institute of Homoeopathy.  Fanny kept busy with charitable organizations.  She was, for instance, secretary of the St. Barnabas Employment Society, which found work for destitute women.  

In 1886, Kellogg hired the esteemed mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert to design a replacement townhouse on the site of 134 and 132 East 36th Street.  For whatever reason, the plans were scrapped and the Kelloggs, instead, moved out and leased the two houses to well-to-do tenants.  Occupying 134 East 36th Street were Henry D. Steers, president of the Eleventh Bank, and his family, here in the 1890s; and Francis G. Gorham, an agent of the Bethlehem Iron Co., who lived here in 1900.  Gorham's social position was evidenced in his memberships to the Union League and Harvard Clubs, the Down Town Association and the New England Society.

Frances Bowen Kellogg died at the age of 64 on June 5, 1900.  Her death greatly affected Dr. Kellogg and in June 1905 Dr. Thomas Franklin Smith remarked, "Since the death of his wife...he has kept very much to himself; for the last two or three years he has kept himself confined to the house to a considerable extent."  Smith's remarks were made at Kellogg's memorial service.  He died on June 29, 1905.

Two years earlier, in February 1903, Kellogg had sold 132 and 134 East 36th Street to attorney Arthur Hoffman Van Brunt and his wife, the former Ethel Townsend Edson.  The Record & Guide reported, "The properties will be remodelled  [sic] into American basement dwellings."  The term meant that the stoops would be removed and the entrances lowered to the former basement level.  In 1905, Van Bruner enlarged 134 East 36th Street with a two-story, three-sided bay at the rear.

Born in 1865, Van Brunt's choice of a law career came naturally.  His father, Charles H. Van Brunt, was presiding justice of the Appellate Division of the First Department.  Arthur graduated from Columbia in 1886 and became a partner in the law firm of Joline, Larkin & Rathbone.  

The year they purchased 134 East 36th Street, the Van Brunt's first child, Caroline, was born.  There would be three more: Edson, born in 1906; Arthur, Jr., in 1910; and David Chesterman, who arrived in 1917.

It may have been the growing population of the narrow house that prompted the Van Brunts to move out.  In March 1916, they leased 134 East 36th Street to the family of Willis and Caroline Charlotte Benner.

The Benners would have to find another home the following year.  In 1917, 134 East 36th Street was converted to offices of the Electro-Medical Scientists, headed by Dr. Francis R. Ward.  On May 20, 1917, the Brooklyn Standard Union reported the offices, "comprise the entire building at 134 East 36th street, corner of Lexington avenue."  As a sort of grand opening discount, the article said, "Consultation, advice and examination, including where required, the X-ray, chemical Analysis and Blood Pressure Test for one dollar."  The offer was good for ten days.

The facility offered what were deemed electric cures.  "Here the fact is proved that science has so modified and tamed electricity that the weakest child or invalid can stand its force without fear or pain," said the article.   "At the offices of the Electro-Medical Scientists the current that lights the homes and runs street cars is used and is harnessed to the wonderful machines by which every jar and jerk is removed and it is then sent through the body as softly, smoothly, and pleasantly as a ray of sunshine."

Ward had started his clinic in Chicago, but relocated to New York after "his advertised claims were attacked by the newspapers," according to the New York Evening World on April 20, 1919.  (In fact, newspapers there flatly called him "a quack.")  When asked by a New York Evening World reporter why he was not a member of the Academy of Medicine, Dr. Ward replied, "they won't let me."

Nevertheless, he and his clinic were doing quite well.  The article said, "He treated last year an average of 125 patients daily at $2.40 a treatment, giving him a gross income of $300 a day, or about $9,000 a month."  The gross monthly figure would translate to about $159,000 in 2024.  The Electro-Medical Scientists remained in the house until 1921.  That year Van Brunt leased it to Isabel Smith and Eldred Johnstone, who presumably rented rooms.

The stoop and entrance were originally identical to those at 132 East 36th Street, seen here in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Van Brunts sold 134 East 36th Street to architect William A. Delano of Delano & Aldrich in 1924.  He converted the house to studio apartments.  Among his tenants were Dr. St. Clair Smith, here around 1927, and operatic soprano Wilma Miller in the 1930s.  Miller played the role of Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Hippodrome on October 26, 1934.

Delano lost the building in foreclosure in 1941.  It continued to house studio apartments until a renovation completed in 2018 returned it to a single family home.

photographs by the author

McKim, Mead & White's 1912 998 Fifth Avenue

 

photograph by Eden, Janine and Jim

In the first decade of the 20th century, apartment living had gained favor on the Upper West Side.  On the opposite side of Central Park, however, things were different.  Here, multi-family residential buildings were still associated with tenements--not the sort of conditions Upper East Side millionaires would consider.  And so when James T. Lee (the future grandfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis) and Charles R. Fleischmann, partners in the Century Holding Co., acquired the plot of land at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 81st Street in the spring of 1910, they were setting out on a risky and daring project.

Lee and Fleischman had acquired the property from millionaire August Belmont "after long negotiations," according to the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide on June 4, 1910.  Belmont had purchased the plot (which was "one of two pieces on upper 5th av. that are not covered by restrictions") as the intended site of his mansion.  Now the partners conceived the third "really high-class apartment house," as described by the Guide, on Fifth Avenue.

"The house will be twelve stories high and will contain but eighteen apartments.  No apartment will have less than seventeen rooms and there may be one of twenty-eight rooms," said the article.  Readers were doubtlessly shocked when they read, "The rentals will range from $10,000 to $26,000, making them the highest renting apartments in the city."  That shock would have been well founded.  The $26,000 per year rent would translate to about $71,650 a month by 2024 conversion.

Six of the 18 apartments "will be on the duplex plan," said the article, adding, 

All the rooms will be of large dimensions and will be decorated as elaborately as the most sumptuous private homes.  The exterior of the building will be in the Italian Renaissance, the facade being of limestone.

McKim, Mead & White, which was currently designing the north wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art almost directly across the avenue, had been given the commission.  The firm's architect William Richardson headed the project.  His choice of an Italian palazzo design was almost assuredly intended to slip unobtrusively into the mansion neighborhood.  (McKim, Mead & White had been faced with the same consideration in 1896 when it designed the University Club within Millionaires' Row.  This new building would have striking similarities.)

Richardson separated the building's three four-story sections with prominent stringcourses--one distinguished by a stone balustrade and the other by Juliette balconies.  The rusticated granite base was decorated with Renaissance inspired shields.  The fifth floor openings wore arched and triangular pediments, and a bracketed cornice completed the design.

McKim, Mead & White released this rendering in 1910.  Record & Guide, August 13, 1910 (copyright expired)

As excavations got underway, the Century Holding Company did significant marketing, stressing that these apartments would be commensurate to mansion living.  On August 13, 1910, the Record & Guide reported, "In the plan of the house an intention is perceived to give in each apartment more and larger room than can be found in any private city dwelling, with the exception of a few of the largest residences.  The four principal rooms--namely, the salon, dining-room, living-room (or library) and the gallery--aggregate 2,500 square feet."  

The servants' wing was well separated from the tenants' space.  The New York Times, December 7, 1913 (copyright expired)

Residents would also be supplied with jewelry safes, wine cellars in the basement, and at least six servants' rooms.  As the building neared completion on March 10, 1912, The Sun noted, "the rooms have been laid out and made of such size that tenants can entertain just as they would in large dwellings.  Indeed the use of fine marbles and woods in reception halls and on stairways has been so skillful that the apartments give at once the impression of expensive individual homes."

An advertisement promised, "Management provides without charge--Vacuum cleaning of suites, window cleaning, artificial refrigerator and supply of cake ice."  The bathrooms were lined with marble.  The Sun was impressed with the modern conveniences, pointing out,

The kitchen is provided with a waste incinerator which makes unnecessary the handling of garbage.  Washing machines of the latest device and electric drying and ironing equipment are included in the service.  Refrigeration is supplied to kitchens by means of a pipe coil and cake ice made on the premises as well is supplied to tenants.

photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

At the time of the article, almost all of the apartments had been rented.  Those who signed leases during construction had provided their input on the individual designs.  The Sun mentioned, "In the Root and Guggenheim apartments, which include whole floors, the salons and livings rooms have been thrown together to make large spaces where receptions and dances may be held.  In Senator Guggenheim's apartment this room has been done in gold, with a ceiling which probably is the equal of anything of the kind in the city."

The tenants mentioned in the article, industrialist and politician Murray Guggenheim and his wife, the former Leonie Bernheim; and Elihu Root and his wife, Clara Wales; would have equally impressive neighbors within the building.  Others who signed leases during construction, according to The Sun, were Commodore Robert E. Tod, Lloyd Aspinwall, Rogers Winthrop, Levi P. Morton, Colonel George Fearing, and Henry Goldman.

On November 1, 1913, the Record & Guide concluded, "It paid to go the limit."  The article said, "The highest schedule of rentals ever known in the city attracted families from the best circles of society.  No more distinguished social functions have occurred anywhere this year in the city than were enjoyed in this house."

Elihu Root was a familiar name to Americans.  He was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1883.  Then, in July 1899, he was made Secretary of War by President William McKinley.  Root resigned his cabinet position on February 1, 1904 to return to New York and his private law practice.  The Roots' summer estate was in Clinton, New York.

Another former politician was Levi Parsons Morton, who had married his second wife, Anna Livingston Reade Street, in 1873.  A descendant of George Morton, who landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Ann in 1623, he started his career in the drygoods business.  In 1878, he was elected to Congress, was appointed Minister to France in 1881, and in 1889 became Vice President under Benjamin Harrison.  He served as Governor of New York from January 1, 1895 through December 31, 1896.

Banker Henry Goldman of Goldman Sachs and his wife, the former Babette Kaufman, had three children.  All the residents of 998 Fifth Avenue had impressive art collections, but none, perhaps, surpassed the Goldmans'.  Shortly after they moved in, on December 12, 1912, The New York Times reported that Goldman had purchased a "painting of St. Bartholomew by Rembrandt" and said it, "is now adorning the gallery of Mr. Goldman's home."  Dr. Wilhelm Bode, the foremost European authority on Rembrandt declared it "to be a splendid specimen of the great artist's work."

Five years later, on January 16, 1917, The New York Times reported that Goldman had added Hans Holbein's Portrait of a Musician to his collection.  "The picture cost Mr. Goldman $175,000," said the article.

Three years before that article, the Goldman family's name had appeared in the newspapers for less happy reasons.  On May 26, 1914, Robert Goldman, who was 20 years old, "ran away from Williams College, where he was a junior," reported The Evening World, "with Edith Ostend, a chorus girl, and they were secretly married in Jersey City."  Goldman's bride was 19 years old.  The marriage did not sit well with her new parents-in-law.

Young Goldman was sent to "Ranch L07," a property in Meeker's, Colorado.  Calling the ranch "his exile," The Evening World explained, "With an English tutor the boy was sent out there to be a cowboy and to forget his costly experience on Broadway."  In the meantime, Henry Goldman had Edith Ostend Goldman trailed.

In court on March 1, 1915, Goldman's private secretary, Chester E. Mann, related that he had headed a raid on the studio of artist Nathan Harris at 66 West 9th Street.  He and the investigators climbed down a fire escape and into a window.  "Mrs. Goldman was sitting on a couch nude with Harris," he testified.  It was the beginning of the end of Robert Goldman's short-lived marriage.

On December 23, 1918, The Evening Post reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Edson Bradley will give a dinner-dance at their apartment at 998 Fifth Avenue on Wednesday evening."  At the time, the Bradleys had homes in Tuxedo Park, Newport, Washington D.C. and on Wellesley Island.  Born in New Canaan, Connecticut, Bradley was married to the former Julia Wentworth Williams.  He succeeded her stepfather, Marshall J. Allen, as president of W. A. Gaines & Co., one of the largest distilleries in the nation.  The dinner dance reported on by The Evening Post was just one of the many glittering events that would be held in their apartment.

The New-York Tribune reported on December 21, 1922, for instance, "Mr. and Mrs. Edson Bradley gave a dinner at their home, 988 Fifth Avenue, last night for Bishop and Mrs. William T. Manning.  Among the guests were their neighbors, Elihu and Clara Root, along with Lady Maitland, the Chauncey Depews, Mrs. Herbert Shipman, and others.

On June 5, 1924, the New York Evening Post reported that the Bradleys had "closed their home at 998 Fifth avenue and are at the Plaza until they go to Newport for the summer."  The couple was in the process of rebuilding their mansion there.

In 1931, the art collection of W. E. Dickerman hung on walls covered in brocaded fabric.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Other socially prominent residents were Elliot Fitch Shepard, Jr. and his wife, the former Eleanor Leigh Terradell.  Shepard was the son of Elliott Fitch Shepard and Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt, the eldest daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt.  On October 20, 1918, The Sun casually mentioned, "Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, after passing the summer in the Virginia Hot Springs, has returned to 998 Fifth avenue."

Six months after that article, another Vanderbilt moved into 998 Fifth Avenue.  On April 5, 1919, the Record & Guide reported that Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt, the widow of George Washington Vanderbilt, had leased "a duplex apartment, especially planned, of 18 rooms and 5 baths."

French paneling and frescoed ceilings made way for modern decor in the Edouard Jonas apartment in 1936.  On the walls are Van Gogh's Portrait of a Peasant; Dancers in the Wings by Degas; and Degas's Horse with Head Lowered.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The following year, in July, apartments were leased to Harriet Smith Van Schoonhoven Thorne and Henry Fairfield Osborn.  Harriet Thorne's husband, millionaire Jonathan Thorne, had died in January that year.  

Henry Fairfield Osborn was born in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1857 to a distinguished family.  His father, William Henry Osborn, was a railroad mogul.  Henry's wife was the former Lucretia Thatcher Perry.  Unlike his industrialist father, Henry pursued an academic career.  He was hired in 1891 as a professor of zoology at Columbia University, and subsequently took the position of curator of the Vertebrate Paleontology Department of the American Museum of Natural History.

Another prominent family here by 1926 were the Lewis Latham Clarkes.  Born in 1871, Clarke descended from William Ellery, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, on his mother's side; and from Emperor Charlemagne and Henry I of England on his father's.  Florence M. Clarke held her own among the socialites in the building in terms of lavish entertaining.

On March 11, 1927, for instance, The New York Times reported that Emilio Axerio, Consul General for Italy had conferred the decoration of Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy upon Lewis Latham Clarke "at a dinner which Mrs. Clarke gave last night at their home, 998 Fifth Avenue."  The article said, "A musical program and supper followed the dinner."  Among the 52 dinner guests were elite names like Schermerhorn, Mackay, Baruch, Brokaw, and Harriman.  

On April 15, 1912, the year 998 Fifth Avenue was completed, John Jacob Astor IV perished when the RMS Titanic sank.  His pregnant wife, Madeleine was rescued and on August 14 their son, John Jacob Astor VI was born.  Now, three decades later, he moved into a penthouse here after his wife, Ellen, filed for divorce in Reno in the spring of 1943.

A rumor reached The New York Times that Astor was sharing his apartment with a female named Silvia.  As it turned out, however, she was not his latest love interest.  On October 29, 1943, the newspaper reported that Astor's butler had taken Silvia to the Ellin Prince Speyer Hospital for Animals, noting, "it was known at the hospital as 'the penthouse pig.'"  The article described Silvia as, "about nine inches long and about three weeks old."

In the end, an "emphatic" spokesperson for Astor explained that the pig was not a pet, but "one of a litter from Mr. Astor's farm at Basking Ridge, N. J."  Because it was undernourished, "Mr. Astor and his chauffeur drove the pig from the farm to the hospital."  The animal, "had never been domiciled in a penthouse, never had lived on Fifth Avenue, never had been a pet of Mr. Astor," insisted the statement.

One Sylvia who did live at 998 Fifth Avenue was the fascinating Sylvia Green Wilks.  (Her actual name was Harriet Sylvia Ann Howland Robinson Green Wilks, but she was always known as Sylvia.)  The daughter of eccentric multimillionaire Hettie Green, she was the widow of Matthew Astor Wilks, the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor I.  Sylvia Wilks died in the New York Hospital on February 5, 1951 while living here.  She left an estate valued at $94,965,229 (about $1.1 billion in 2024).

In 1953, 998 Fifth Avenue was converted to a cooperative.  The storied building continued to be home to some of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens.  The 16-room John Jacob Astor VI penthouse was acquired by attorney William Condren, who sold it to Archibald Cox, Jr., son of the Watergate prosecutor, in August 1993 for $5.4 million.  It was sold again in 2000.  Among the other residents at the time were Morton Hyman, head of Overseas Shipholding Group; private investor Peter Kimmelman; and zoning attorney Samuel Lindenbaum.  In September 2017, William P. Lauder, executive chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies, purchased a 14-room apartment on the sixth floor for $23.5 million.

photograph by Jay Dobkin

In designating 998 Fifth Avenue an individual landmark in 1974, the Landmarks Preservation Commission called it, "the finest Italian Renaissance style apartment house in New York City."

The 1843 Christopher Gwyer House - 267 West 11th Street

 

The full-height fourth floor and Italianate cornice were the result of a 19th-century renovation.

Well-to-do butcher Christopher Gwyer purchased the vacant plot at 59 Hammond Street (later renamed and numbered 267 West 11th Street) from builder and developer Andrew Lockwood in 1842.  Lockwood had earlier erected two handsome homes on the abutting plots at 61 and 63 Hammond Street.  He stipulated in the deed that he would erect a similar house for Gwyer within six months of the transfer.

The Gwyer residence, completed in 1843, equaled and in some ways surpassed its neighbors in elegance.  The four-story house was faced in red brick above the high brownstone English basement.  Handsome ironwork decorated with anthemions and lyres protected the areaway, and stone railings and newels originally graced the stoop.

Beside the imposing brownstone framed doorway, the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows were most likely fronted by a cast iron balcony.   A short attic story took the place of the peaked roof and dormers of the earlier Federal style.

Born on February 7, 1795, Christopher Gwyer operated two meat businesses--one in the Washington Market and the other on Hudson Street.  He and his wife, Mary, had four sons, Christopher Jr., George W., John C. and William E.  

It appears that Gwyer's sister, Sarah, and her husband, Samuel Wignalls, lived here as well.  Wignalls died at the age of 54 on April 25, 1848.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

By 1870, Christopher Jr. and George had entered the butcher business.  The three Gwyers operated their own shops.  Christopher was listed as a meat dealer at 25 Washington Market, while George was a poulterer at 202 Washington Market.  Their father's butcher stall was at 8 Washington Market.

Christopher Gwyer died about 1872.  On June 29, 1873, the New York Dispatch reported, "Christopher Gwyer, Jr., is the oldest son of the well-known butcher of Washington Market, is a handsome brunette, very gentlemanly in his address.  Rich, lively, sharp, industrious, and promises in time to be as fat and as wealthy as was his father.  He has several brothers in the poultry line, who are themselves no chickens."

By the time of the article, John C. Gwyer was working for at least two of his brothers on the accounting side of their businesses.  He was listed in directories as "treasurer" of two of the Gwyer operations.  Christopher Jr. moved far uptown to East 116th Street in 1878.  Mary A. Gwyer, too, had moved by 1887, when she leased 267 West 11th Street to Dr. Robert W. Buchanan.  (By then, the attic floor had been raised to full height with a handsome bracketed Italianate cornice, and up-to-date Italianate entrance doors had been installed.)

Born in Scotland in 1862, Buchanan had relocated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he met his wife.  In 1883, he graduated from the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons.  He and his wife had a young daughter, Gertrude.  Buchanan set up his medical practice in the house, but unfortunately, according to The Philadelphia Times, "He was not very prosperous.  His wife proved unfaithful, and he separated from her, retaining his daughter Gertrude."

Annie Buchanan returned to Nova Scotia.  The failure of his marriage coupled with his financial problems nearly undid the doctor.  The Philadelphia Times said, "He took to drinking and dissipation.  Then he fell in with a woman named Annie Sutherland, the keeper of a notorious house in Newark."

Annie Sutherland was 10 years older than Buchanan.  She fell "desperately in love" with him and convinced him to divorce his wife.  But while she was in love with the doctor, he was in love with her significant fortune.  He obtained his divorce on November 12, 1890.  On November 27, Annie rewrote her will, leaving her entire estate to Buchanan, and two days later they were married.

With his newfound prosperity, Buchanan ended his private practice and became a police surgeon and a "commissioner in lunacy."  Annie gave up her Newark brothel to lead the life of a respectable married woman and step-mother.

Dr. Robert Buchanan, The Philadelphia Times, July 2, 1895

Although professionally successful, Buchanan's domestic life grew tense.  He told peers that she was his housekeeper, not his wife; and confessed to more than one acquaintance he wanted to "dump the old woman."  When Annie threatened to divorce him in April 1892 and return to Newark, taking her fortune with her, Buchanan took action.

On the morning of April 22, Annie made breakfast.  Her husband brought her a cup of coffee.  Soon afterward, she "was taken ill without any preliminary warning," according to The Philadelphia Times.  She died the next day "in the presence of two doctors, a nurse and a clergyman, who, one after the other, had been hastily summoned by the apparently distracted husband."  The death certificate listed the cause of death as "cerebral apoplexy."  Annie Sutherland Buchanan was buried in Greenwood Cemetery on April 25.  She left Buchanan "a fortune, and his little daughter $10,000," said The Evening Post.  (Gertrude's inheritance alone would equal about $345,000 in 2024.)

Two weeks later, Buchanan traveled to Novia Scotia and remarried his first wife (confusingly for newspapers also named Annie).  The marriage, said The New York Times, "made the affair look suspicious."  In May, two men visited the office of District Attorney Nicoll and "said Mrs. Buchanan had been poisoned by her husband."  Undercover police watched the West 11th Street house and trailed Dr. Buchanan.  In the meantime, on June 5, 1892, Nicoll ordered Annie Buchanan's body exhumed for an autopsy.  It revealed no evidence of cerebral hemorrhage, but the presence of large amounts of morphine.

As Dr. Buchanan was walking down Broadway with his attorney, Charles E. Davidson, on the afternoon of June 6, detectives arrested him for the murder of his wife.  His counsel quickly told reporters that Annie Buchanan, "was a confirmed morphine eater, and that if her death resulted from narcotic poisoning, she administered the drug herself."  

At trial, damning evidence came out.  One witness testified that Buchanan "had made preparations for flight to South America," and on April 3, 1893, Annie Florence Warren testified that Buchanan had lamented to her husband, "If I had only had the woman's body cremated nothing would have been found."

On July 2, 1895, The Philadelphia Times headlined an article, "Execution of Dr. Buchanan / The Wife Murderer Pays the Penalty of His Crime at Last."  That morning Buchanan had been electrocuted at Sing Sing prison.

Throughout the sensational case, Mary A. Gwyer had rented 267 West 11th Street to another physician, Dr. George Brockway.  It was the scene of the funeral of his 82-year-old father, Herman R. Brockway, on July 7, 1897.

Around 1900, Mary sold the house to George B. Deane, known in the neighborhood as Old Uncle George.  Born in Greenwich Village in 1817, he was described by The New York Times in 1903 as, "a picturesque and quaint figure of the Greenwich Village section of the city."  A founder of the Republican Party in New York City, he had served in the State Assembly.  The feisty politician had once suggested to Theodore Roosevelt, then president of the Police Board, that he "detail" (or promote) a policeman.  Roosevelt, who had been appointed to his position, replied that "the merit system was in vogue."  (The merit system promoted officers based on their performance.)  Deane was said to have answered, "The merit system was in vogue when you were appointed, also."

The widowed George B. Deane died in the West 11th Street house at the age of 86 on December 29, 1903.  His son, Joseph W. Deane, sold it on March 6, 1906, The New York Times noting it was "formerly owned by the McGuire [sic] estate."

The residence became a high-end boarding house.  Among the residents were Lorenzo N. Rider, a 1906 graduate of Union College and an employee of the Western Electric Co.; George Michael Lawton, who held a Ph.B. degree from Wesleyan University; and Robert H. Wade.  Lawton was affiliated with the Coal and Iron National Bank in 1911, the year that Wade was inducted into the U.S. Army.  He left for camp on April 2 that year.

The substantial stone stoop newels and railings survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

An advertisement in The New York Times on October 3, 1920 offered, "Enormous, furnished comfortable back parlor, splendid light, private bath, steam heat. $20."  The rent would translate to about $300 per month today.

The house was occupied by real estate operator F. K. Maximillian and his wife, Adele, at the time.  It appears it was Maximillian who erected the small building in the rear yard, which was accessed through the narrow horsewalk, or passageway, between 267 and 265 West 11th Street.  

The little rear building was home to Adele's showroom.  She designed and made custom children's clothing.  An advertisement in Harper's Bazaar in April 1928 began, "When they are six or one or twelve years old, they delight in wearing the fascinating clothes designed for girls and small boys in my own studio."

A "brother and sister" outfit designed by Adele Maximillian.  Children, the Magazine for Parents, January 1927

The Maximillians remained here into the Depression years.  The former clothing shop became a bake shop in 1940.  On November 22, the Kinderhook, New York Advertiser reported that Dr. Berta Hamilton and Mrs. Piri S. Stanton...have announced the opening of Brick School Tea House Workshop at 267 West 11th street, New York City, specializing in fine cakes, pastries and candies."

By 1949, the rear building had been renovated as a residence.  It was rented that year to artist Joan Mitchell and her partner Barney Rossett.  On September 23, 2021, poet Eileen Myles recalled her first visit.  "Turns out there's a tiny metal gate to the right of the building, itself full of grates and scrolls, and it leads to the single-story building behind 267 West 11th, where Joan and Barney actually wound up living."

Today the former Gwyer house is a two-family home.  The stone balustraded stoop railings and newels were replaced with metal versions prior to 1969, but the overall integrity of the residence is greatly intact.

photographs by the author

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The 1891 Granville Moss White House - 272 West 77th Street

 

Working for developer Francis M. Jenks, in 1891 architect Clarence Fagan True designed a group of seven upscale homes that wrapped the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West 77th Street.  Comfortable with combining two or three historic styles to create residences that were at once fanciful and elegant, True designed this project in three groups, culminating in a striking, unified pair at 270 and 272 West 77th Street.

Looking at a glance like a single mansion, the houses were significantly different in size.  At 28 feet wide, 272 West 77th Street was 11 feet wider than its counterpart at 270.  The arched entrances sat within a Romanesque Revival base of undressed stone above short stoops.  Medieval turned to Elizabethan in the intricately carved stone railing of the full-width second floor balcony.  The smooth-faced limestone upper floors of 272 West 77th Street were divided into two sections--one bowed, the other flat-faced.  They rose to a dormered mansard.

The two houses were meant to appear as one.

No. 272 West 77th Street became home to Dr. Granville Moss White, his wife, the former Laura Dunham Tweedy, and their two sons, six-year-old Theodore Tweedy and two-year-old Nelson Lloyd.  

Born in Danbury, Connecticut on May 21, 1855, Granville M. White graduated from Yale Law School in 1877, then changed course.  He received his medical degree from Columbia University Medical School in 1884.  When he moved his family into the West 77th Street house, he was one of three examining physicians for the Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York.  (He would later become a vice-president of the firm.)

This photo of a confident-looking Granville Moss White was taken during his senior year at Yale Law School, in 1877.  (copyright expired)

Early in the morning of December 20, 1898, the White family and the other occupants of the block were roused from their sleep.  The family of Charles H. Raymond lived at 260 West 77th Street and Raymond's sister-in-law, Julia Underwood, was visiting for the holidays from Washington, D.C.  Fire was discovered by a maid and the cook around 6:30.  As the cook, Harriet Fee, rushed upstairs to awaken the residents, "there came a great volcanic burst of flame," as worded by The Sun.  In the end Harriet, Julia Underwood, and Mrs. Raymond were killed, and six people injured.

Charles Raymond had been rescued by firefighters just after his wife jumped to her death.  When he reached street level, he saw the body of his sister-in-law on the ground.  The Sun reported, "He covered his eyes with his arms, and would have fallen had not one of the firemen caught him.  He was taken to the house of a friend, Dr. G. W. [sic] White of 272 West Seventy-seventh street."

Like their neighbors, the Whites had a domestic staff.  Among them in 1894 was a "German nursery governess."  The family would have also employed a cook, and at least one chambermaid, a butler, and possibly a laundress.  On April 13, 1900, a new cook started work and it was not long before trouble ensued.

Two nights later, Dr. White was reading in his study when he heard someone "fumbling cautiously at the knob of the front door," as reported by the New York Sun.  He listened and the noise began again.  "Then he tiptoed to the front door and opened it suddenly," said the article.  A man entered the hall and White "pounced upon him and dragged him into the study, where there was a light on, and demanded to know what the fellow was doing at the front door."

"I am a cousin of your new cook and I have called to see her."

The cook was summoned to the study and she confirmed that the man was her cousin.  She explained that he probably did not know better than to try to enter the house uninvited.  Dr. White was unconvinced and took Samuel Farcusin, who was a Hungarian-born tailor, to the West 68th Street police station and had him arrested as a "suspicious person."  The Sun said, "He could speak little English and seemed badly frightened."

The following year, in August 1901, White hired architect Charles A. Rich (of the recently dissolved firm of Lamb & Rich) to make $500 in improvements to the house, including "new steel beams and girders."  The renovations seem to have been in anticipation of the White family's leaving West 77th Street and leasing the dwelling.  They moved to Morristown, New Jersey where, in 1910, they would acquire the striking Colonial Revival style mansion, Oak Dell.

In 1902, 272 West 77th Street was rented by William Alexander Burrows and his wife, the former Virginia Prickett.  The New York Times described Burrows as "a well-known broker in foreign exchange" who came from "an old English family."  William Burrows died "suddenly" in the house on June 4, 1903 (the term most often suggested a heart attack or stroke).  Virginia Burrows continued to lease the house for several years.

Frances S. Barnes occupied 272 West 77th Street by 1909.  Described by The New York Sun as "a wealthy young woman and an exhibitor at horse shows," she was the unmarried daughter of Thomas R. Barnes and the granddaughter of millionaire publisher Alfred Smith Barnes.  Her affluence was reflected in an article in the New York Herald on July 23, 1909, which reported that she was offering a $200 reward for the return of a three-stone, diamond Tiffany ring which she lost while getting in or out of a taxicab at Broadway and 42nd Street.  The reward would equal nearly $7,000 in 2024.

Frances's luck with jewelry worsened three years later when, on December 27, 1912, The Sun reported she offered a $1,000 reward for "the return of more than $10,000 worth of jewelry" stolen from her.

The White family continued to lease 272 West 77th Street to well-heeled families--James K. Mason in 1913, Anatole Levy in 1915, and Axel Raun in 1919, for instance--until Granville Moss White's death in 1931.

The house was purchased by the Nordacs Club, a Jewish men's social and charitable club established in February 1919.  The club's name was the backwards spelling of its founder's surname--attorney Louis Scadron.  It had been operating from 220 Lenox Avenue.  The club published its monthly magazine The Nordacs News from here.  Among its charitable works was the distribution of baskets of food and toys to the poor during the Christmas and Passover holidays.

The Nordacs Club regularly hosted charity events that were supported by big names in entertainment and sports circles.  On December 18, 1935, for instance, it staged a charity boxing event to benefit the poor.  Guest referees included Jack Dempsey and Irving Jaffee and, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the event included a "comedy bout between A. Schact, the baseball clown and Milton Berle."  (It would be one of several appearances Berle made for Nordacs Club benefits.)

In his July 3, 1936 "Broadway" column in the Daily News, three years after the Nazi party came to power in Germany, Ed Sullivan wrote about "an outfit that is circularizing clubs and organizations, offering Aryan orchestras, entertainers and serenaders."  Saying that one of the first letters went to "the Nordacs Club, composed of Jewish members," Sullivan said flatly, "New York has no place for these cheap, poisonous Old World hatreds."

In 1941 a Nordacs Club banner hung from the second story balcony.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It may have been that disturbing trend, both abroad and in America, that prompted a change within the Nordacs Club.  In his 1935 The Political Clubs of New York City, Roy V. Peel noted,

The Nordacs Club of 272 West 77th Street, heretofore known as strictly a social club, is now bent on taking an active part in politics.  The club has an active membership of more than 750 members [and] owns its own four-story building in West 77th Street, between West End avenue and Broadway, and is considered one of the best financed social clubs in the city.

Peel said, "Just what the politic of the club will be has not been revealed," but he had been told that "the club shall use its membership, consisting of young men over the age of 21 years, to good advantage and for the mutual benefit of the club and its members."

In 1940, the Nordacs Club shared its clubhouse with the Knickerbocker Post No. 111 of Jewish Veterans.

The club left 272 West 77th Street in the late 1950s.  A renovation completed in 1962 resulted in twelve apartments.  From the outside, the residence is little changed since its completion more than 130 years ago.

photographs by the author

many thanks to Ralph Stone for prompting this post and for his valuable input.