The Lost Barnard's Cloisters -- Fort Washington Avenue and 189th Street

 

The Literary Digest, July 25, 1925 (copyright expired)

On July 16, 1919, The Sun described the area between the Hudson River to Broadway, and 181st street to 202nd street as, "the wildest and most naturally beautiful in all New York," noting that around "the studio of the sculptor George Grey Barnard, the Cloisters...there are scarcely a dozen houses in the primitive expanse."

Born in 1863, sculptor George Grey Barnard studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  He would be described by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's curator J. L. Schrader in 1979, "that Titan of American sculptors."  After living in France for a dozen years, Barnard returned to America in 1896.  He had married Edna Monroe a year earlier.  Barnard taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1900 until 1903, when he returned to France with Edna and their daughter.

Always fascinated with Gothic art and architecture, Barnard took his family to the countryside one afternoon for a picnic.  He wandered onto a farm and later told The Sun, "Well, if I had not ventured around the manure pile I would never have found these two sculptures, the start of my collection."  Those "two sculptures" were "wonderful twelfth century Virgins," he explained.

For the next decade, Barnard scavenged the countryside, finding Gothic capitals and other architectural fragments and artworks.  In one instance, he filled two cartloads with relics.  Among his acquisitions was the ruins of the cloister of St. Guilhem, a monastery "that was torn down during the French Revolution," explained The Sun on December 6, 1914.  The article noted, "Mr. Barnard recovered most of it in a vineyard, where the capitols [sic], just flush with the earth, prevented the rotting of the poles."

Before the outbreak of World War I, Barnard shipped his massive collection to New York City.  He established his house and studio in the rural Fort Washington district and began assembling the various architectural artifacts into what he would call the Barnard's Cloisters.  On October 25, 1914, The New York Times reported, "The plan of George Grey Barnard to establish his mediaeval treasures in an environment that would enable a thirteenth century monk to come back to them without knowing that time had passed is rapidly taking form."

from "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Times remarked, "Mr. Barnard has for many years rebelled against the dislocation of treasures of art in museums providing only an unsympathetic environment...This installment, when complete, will be unique and will have for students an inestimable value."  The Harrisburg Telegraph agreed.  As construction neared completion on December 7, 1914, the newspaper called the Barnard's Cloisters, "unique and without a counterpart in the world."

Barnard's understanding of Gothic architecture and his demand of authenticity resulted in sections being erected, pulled down, and re-erected.  The Harrisburg Telegraph said, 

Scarcely a brick in it but has been thoughtfully placed by him.  Sometimes the bricks have been placed and replaced until just the right feeling for the arch of the line has been obtained, for Mr. Barnard and his workmen have been working in the ancient way, trying to secure a fitting background for the ancient carvings.

Barnard told reporters that he, "did not expect to reveal the unique building to New York for several years," but the war in Europe moved up his opening.  Concerned for the families of French sculptors, he admitted the public into the Cloisters in December 1914, donating the proceeds to those afflicted.  The pricey $5 admission during weekdays would translate to about $157 in 2025.

The Sun, December 20, 1914 (copyright expired)

Getting there was not easy.  The closest public transportation was about ten blocks away, and then the visitor had to climb a steep incline.  The trek was nevertheless worthwhile.  The American Year Book called Barnard's Cloisters the "most important addition to the art museums of the United States."  And Elbert F. Baldwin, writing in The Outlook, said, "Within is one of the most remarkable collections of sculpture ever exhibited in this country.  Indeed, outside of the Louvre and Cluny Museums, it may be the finest of any collection of French Gothic statues, bas-reliefs, capitals, and altar carvings."

George Gray Barnard at his Cloisters around 1914.  from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 1979.

Barnard's Cloisters, based on a basilica plan, incorporated (for the most part) elements from four medieval monasteries.  Forty-eight marble double capitals and shafts, for instance, had been part of the cloister of Bonnefont-en-Comminges.  Barnard had pulled them from a streambed.  He attributed other pieces as being from the 15th century cloisters of Trie-en-Bigorre, a Carmelite convent destroyed in 1571.  Another portion, reported H. L. Brock, writing in The New York Times, "is part of a columned arcade from the ruined abbey of St. Michel de Cuxa, chartered, it is said, by Charlemagne, and built with the Emporor's money."  Inside, columns and capitals from St. Guilhem supported a balcony that surrounded three sides.

from "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Within the Cloisters was Barnard's personal collection of between 600 and 700 examples of medieval art.  Elbert F. Baldwin wrote, 

As soon as one crosses the threshold one passes from the atmosphere of America and the twentieth century into the atmosphere of France and the twelfth and thirteenth centuries....The interior is austere and ecclesiastical and the resultant feeling on the part of the sensitive onlooker may very well be more or less reverent.

Barnard stressed that his Cloisters was not a reproduction, but merely a fitting environment in which to exhibit his collection.  And he succeeded.  Baldwin praised, "now each column, capital, statue, carved relief, or winged altar seems to be in just that place which it once filled."

from "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Importantly, Barnard provided the public a sense of the medieval--a period with which Americans were mostly ignorant.  In September 1921, Gas Logic explained, "The result is not a replica of any Gothic building, not so much as a resurrection of a Gothic church, as a reincarnation of the Gothic spirit."

The uniqueness and importance of the collection and the building continued to draw praise.  Seven years after its opening, Gas Logic wrote,

Colonnades, capitals and arches are by no means the sum of the collection.  There are statues and busts in stone and wood, whole and fragmentary, saints, virgins, knights, little genre figures, grotesques; there are paintings, wall plaques, reliefs in stone, plaster and wood; there are stations of the Cross, lecterns, fonts, candlesticks, choirstalls, benches; illumined books and manuscripts, altar cloths, wrought iron work, pieces of bronze, fresco and stain glass.

from the "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1921, Barnard offered the Cloisters for a benefit performance.  On June 24, The Evening World reported, "Amid the woodland surroundings of George Barnard's Cloisters," a benefit performance of "the Dante pageant" had been performed the previous day for the benefit of the Casa di Dante and the Light House for Blind Italian Soldiers.  The critic deemed, "probably never before in any similar entertainment has there been such a regal display of costly fabrics and real antique in the manner of costumes."

The following year, on August 7, 1922, The New York Herald reported, "An extremely picturesque and interesting performance was given yesterday afternoon of three short plays by the Union of East and West at the Cloisters of Saint Guilhem, loaned for the special presentation by George Grey Barnard, noted sculptor."  The costumes and players in the three Hindu plays, said the article, "stood out all the more vividly, and yet quite appropriately, in the somber, mysterious atmosphere of the 13th Century Cloisters, surrounded by a religious atmosphere of sacred statuary, tombs and candelabra."

from the "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Two months before that article, readers may have gotten their first hint that George Grey Barnard (who was struggling with finances) was pondering the selling of the Barnard's Cloisters.  On June 28, 1922, The Washington Times reported that Barnard was negotiating with the city of Los Angeles to purchase and transport the Barnard's Cloisters to the West Coast.  Barnard explained, "I would rather sell the Cloisters to Los Angeles than to anyone else who has so far attempted to buy this collection of French Gothic art."

Four months later, on October 10, The Public Ledger of Maysville, Kentucky, reported, "The collection is an institution in itself, and frequently rumors reach us that it is to be bought and moved elsewhere.  The city of Los Angeles is negotiating for it just now, and New York may well lament its passing if that event must come."

Instead, however, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. stepped in.  On October 10, 1925, The Dearborn Independent reported, "American lovers of art are satisfied now that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has annexed the famous Cloisters of George Grey Barnard, the collection of antique Gothic sculpture at Fort Washington avenue...The gift was made by John D. Rockefeller, jr., who paid $600,000 for the building and museum."

The New York Sun said, 

They will not be brought down to the Central Park galleries and piled together as an indivisible unit nor will they be separated and catalogued according to the departments to which their period or style would assign them.  Instead they will remain in the red brick building ornamented sparingly with Gothic carvings and suitable suggestive of an ecclesiastical interior which their collector designed for them.

Perhaps that was the original intention, but not for long.  Rockefeller assembled properties north of Barnard's Cloisters, eventually amassing enough land to hire Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to design a park, Fort Tryon Park.  In February 1930, he offered the Metropolitan Museum of Art to erect a new museum in the park to house the collection.  As Barnard had done, elements of abbeys in France were acquired, disassembled and reconstructed here.  

The courtyard, from the "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

On May 9, 1935, The Ronan Pioneer of Ronan, Montana, remarked, "the project will supplant the present Cloisters built by George Grey Barnard, noted sculptor."  The article added, "With the construction of the Rockefeller building, the original building will revert to Mr. Barnard."

Barnard discovered this tombstone upside-down being used as a footbridge.  from the "View of the Cloisters," 1926, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

George Grey Barnard died on April 24, 1938.  His funeral was held in the "Abbaye" of his Cloisters.  Less than two weeks later, on May 10, the new Cloisters opened.  On December 30, 1943, The New York Times reported that Barnard's "old Cloisters, museum, home and studio where many of the late sculptor's works were executed and where he painstakingly assembled his outstanding collection of Romanesque and early Gothic art treasures, have been sold to a corporation which expects to utilize the big site...for a large six-story apartment building."

The Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired most of the architectural elements of the Barnard's Cloisters.  Other parts were auctioned in New York City in December 1945.

many thanks to reader David Flaneur for requesting this post

A. G. Rechlin's 1901 204 Spring Street

 

Unlike thousands of Italian immigrants who arrived in Manhattan in the 1890s, Dominick Abbate and Rocco Maria Marasco did not live in tenement buildings, but constructed them.  Abbate could have sprung from a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story.  Starting as a newsboy at the age of nine, he worked various jobs until he saved $150 at the age of 21.  He and Marasco invested in real estate and, according to The New York Times, "The firm did a business of $2,000,000 in seven years."

At the dawn of the 20th century, Marasco & Abbate were replacing numerous vintage structures with modern multi-family buildings.  On April 10, 1901, The New York Times reported that architect A. G. Rechlin had filed plans for another--a seven-story "brick flat" at 204 Spring Street.  Rechlin placed the construction cost at $25,000 (about $924,000 in 2025).

The building was completed by the end of the year.  By December 9, 1901, when Francesco and Louise Roseti purchased it from Marasco & Abbate, they had already moved in.  Rechlin's tripartite Renaissance Revival-style design included a cast iron storefront.  Two shops flanked the centered residential entrance.  The second floor windows sat within unusual terra cotta frames.  Bracketed, terra cotta intermediate cornices above the third and sixth floors defined the brick midsection.  Three-story terra cotta frames unified the windows into regimented rows, their spandrels filled with elaborate terra cotta panels of cartouches with female faces upon a foliate background.  Echoing those of the third floor, the arched windows of the seventh floor wore brick voussoirs. 

French-inspired iron fire escapes were nearly as much a part of Rechlin's design as the elaborate terra cotta panels.

The neighborhood sat within what newspapers often called the "Italian Colony."  Not surprisingly, the Rosetis' tenants were almost exclusively Italian-born.  

One resident, Louis Landolfi, joined the U. S. Army upon America's entry into World War I.  On November 24, 1918, the War Department reported that he had been slightly wounded in battle.

A year earlier, another tenant had been a victim of the war.  His injuries, however, had nothing to do directly with the conflict.  On November 4, 1917, The Sun reported, "Joseph Percodani of 204 Spring street is believed to be the latest victim from drinking 'war whiskey' to have attracted police investigation."  Percodani had been transported from his Spring Street apartment to St. Vincent's Hospital the previous night, where doctors, "said he was suffering from wood alcohol poisoning."

On March 10, 1922, The New York Times reported that Luigi Parmengini, "lived with his wife and two children in a three-room apartment at 204 Spring Street, and represented himself as a prosperous grocer."  In fact, Federal narcotic agents described Parmengini as "one of the biggest wholesale drug venders in the country."  An undercover operation ended with Parmengini's arrest on March 9, prompting the article to say, "It was three months ago when the effort to bring in this lion of the narcotic jungle begun."

At the time of Parmengini's apprehension, "Federal agents seized 100 pounds of heroin, valued when distributed to street peddlers and other retailers at $500,000," said The New York Times.  That figure would translate to $9 million today.

In 1941, a remarkable Federal-style house survived next door to 204 Spring Street.  image via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

The Spring Street neighborhood stubbornly retained its Italian personality well into the second half of the 20th century.  Among the residents of 204 Spring Street in 1974 were the family of Vincent Landolfi.  (Whether he was related to Louis Landolfi, wounded in 1918, is unclear.)  Landolfi was described as a "particularly significant" figure within a massive illegal gambling operation headed by organized crime families.

At the time, the Soho neighborhood was changing, as galleries and trendy cafes and shops redefined the district.  In 1978, one of the shops at 204 Spring Street became home to craftsman Bob Wald's Sculptured Furniture.  Having learned woodworking in the 1950s, Anne-Marie Schiro of The New York Times described Ward on July 13, 1978 as, "really a sculptor."  She said a piece of furniture made by Ward "becomes an heirloom."

Perhaps epitomizing the changes of the neighborhood was Details, an accessories shop, which opened in 1981.  Four years later, on New Year's Day 1985, John Duka of The New York Times, remarked that Details jewelry could be seen "at downtown cocktail parties trying to be uptown, or at uptown cocktail parties trying to be downtown."

Today, the two shops contain a smoke shop and an Asian restaurant.  While the street level has been essentially obliterated, other than replacement windows, A. G. Rechlin's eye-catching upper floors are outwardly little changed after nearly a century and a quarter.

photographs by the author

The 1912 Manice Building - 159 Madison Avenue

When developer William Manice hired Wallis & Goodwillie to design a 12-story "brick and stone store and loft" in 1911, he was perhaps taking a risk.  While the firm was well-established, Architecture magazine commented on December 15, 1912, "The architects of this building were almost untried in work of the loft building type."

A respected architect, Frank E. Wallis also wrote articles and books on architecture, while his partner, Frank Goodwillie, specialized in the engineering aspects of their projects.  Just before they received the commission for the Manice Building, Arthur Loomis Harmon left McKim, Mead & White to join Wallis & Goodwillie.

The plans, filed in July 1911, projected the construction cost at $350,000--about $11.6 million in 2025 terms.  Completed the following year, any doubts about Wallis & Goodwillie's ability to design a loft building were quickly erased.  

Architecture, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

Architecture magazine began its critique on December 15, 1912 saying, "Considered from an architectural viewpoint, the Manice building, Wallis & Goodwillie architects, Arthur Loomis Harmon, associate, may be placed at the head of the loft building class.  It demonstrates better than anything we can recall how excellent results are obtained by the introduction of a new thought on an old problem."

The tripartite Renaissance Revival design was defined with materials (stone at the base, sandy colored brick at the midsection, and white terra cotta at the top level) and prominent intermediate cornices.  The limestone base featured a double-height arcade and an elaborate band of Renaissance inspired panels.  Architecture commented, "The most beautiful features are the entrance doors, in delightful detail, and the ornamental band, carved in low relief, at the third story level."

Architecture, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

Above the relatively unadorned midsection, Wallis & Goodwillie created deep, double-height recesses, each supported by a single Corinthian column.  "The cornice is of wide Italian or Spanish type," said Architecture, "executed in copper."

It was that cornice that impressed The American Architect, which commented that it, "represented the inspiration of the Lombard rather than the Tuscan architects; characterized by a greater beam thickness and wider spacing, they present a pleasing variation of the type."

The unusual treatment of the recessed upper windows separated by a column can be seen in this detail.  The American Architect, January 27, 1915 (copyright expired)

The Manice Building filled with the workshops and showrooms of wholesale apparel firms.  Among the earliest were J. & F Goldstone, Zaiss & Engel, Leon Jobin, George H. Montrose & Co., and Maurice Bandler.  The latter, which fashioned women's coats, marketed itself as, "The House of Coat Cleverness."  In its August 1912 issue, Crerand's Cloak Journal said, "The Manice Building is almost desirable as an American Rue de la Paix, for it is tenanted from top to bottom only by firms of the highest class of whose products this market is justly proud and whose producers are men competent to speak with authority on all matters pertaining to the world's fashion."

Visitors to the Manice Building stepped into a marble lined lobby with mosaic floors, bronze trim and elaborate coffered ceilings.  Architecture & Building, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

Crerand's Cloak Journal said, "The Manice Building is a triumph of modern factory construction, for few would imagine from the palatial appearance of this magnificent and ornate office building situated in New York's most fashionable thoroughfare...that it was a busy hive of the garment industry where several thousand workers are gathered under one roof."  While those garment workers labored at their sewing machines in the back areas, the elegant showrooms mimicked their counterparts in Paris.  In August 1912, Crerand's Cloak Journal devoted an article to "the palatial show rooms."  

In each French-inspired showroom, buyers inspect new garments on live models.  

Buyers at the Maurice Bandler showroom (above) are separated by French panels.  Below, a model exhibits a dress to a potential customer.  images from Crerand's Cloak Journal, August 1912 (copyright expired)

Like the other tenants in the building who manufactured suits, dresses and other women's fashions, Maurice Bandler sent its designers to Europe every year to get inspiration (some might say steal) from the current trends.  In a full-page advertisement in the Dry Goods Economist on July 18, 1914, Maurice Bandler assured buyers that its fall line would be on point with Parisian fashions.  "We have had our designers make an exhaustive study of the style trends abroad...To buyers afflicted with doubt and worried by the uncertainty existing in many quarters, the Bandler line offers a haven of security."

Fashion houses continued to occupy the Manice Building.  In 1916, Markowitz Co., Inc., makers of "high class dresses and costumes," as worded by The American Cloak and Suit Review, moved in, and the following year Goldberg-Goldschmidt Costume Co., Inc. signed a lease.  

In the meantime, the 20,000-square-foot ground floor space was home to Amos T. Hill Furniture Co., Inc.  The firm's high-end, handmade furniture was displayed in the Madison Avenue side, while its factory was entered at 157 East 32nd Street.  An advertisement in Good Furniture in May 1917 said in part, "Exclusive and individual designs in furniture for the living room, dining room and bed room are on display in our show rooms."  A photograph in 1918 shows large bronze lettering above the second floor: "Amos T. Hill Furniture."

The four brownstone residences demolished for the Manice Building were similar to those at the right.  Architecture & Building, December 15, 1912 (copyright expired)

The Floersheimer Company, makers of dresses, moved into the Manice Building in December 1918.  Albert Floersheimer ran a non-union operation, explaining to the New-York Tribune in February 1921 that, "he was paying his employees more than the union scale [and] that working conditions in his factory were of the best."  Although his workers seemed to be content, the union was not.

Early in 1921, the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union began lobbying the Floersheimer workers to unionize.  Albert Floersheimer filed suit on February 24, "for a permanent injunction to be issued" to the officers of the union.  The affidavit asserted that the union's purpose was, "to increase the revenue of the international union, which thereby would get new members who would be required to pay $17.50 for a membership book."

Floersheimer emerged victorious over the powerful union.  On March 24, 1921, the New-York Tribune reported that the injunction was granted, restraining the union "from picketing...and from trying to force their employees to join the union."

Harper's Bazaar, January 1923 (copyright expired)

While apparel makers like Princess Pat Dressmakers still occupied the Manice Building in 1923, others were migrating into the newly developing Garment District above 34th Street.  At the time, silk dealers were moving into the Madison Avenue district.  On May 11, 1922, the New-York Tribune reported on the first of these, saying that R. & H. Simon, Inc. "one of the largest silk and ribbon manufacturers in this country," had signed a lease.

On November 22, 1924, the New York Evening Post noted, "Present indications seems to portend that the intersection of Madison avenue and Thirty-fourth street will be the future center of the silk trade."  By the end of the decade, silk dealers Wullschleger & Co., Majestic Silk Mills, Theodore Fruchtman (who made men's silk ties) and Royal Textile Co. occupied the building.  

Wullschleger & Co. was founded in 1908 by Swiss-born Arthur E. Wullschleger.  In a 1925 brochure describing the firm's large silk weaving of The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Arthur Wullschleger said, "the volume of business has reached a turnover of many millions of dollars annually, sales of over a million dollars having even been booked in a single month."

In 1925, large lettering on the cornice above the third floor reads "Wullschleger & Co."  The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1925 (copyright expired)

As Adam T. Hill had done, Wullschleger & Co. prominently affixed its name to the Madison Avenue facade.  It would be replaced before 1936, when the Bethlehem Furniture Company name was emblazoned above the second floor in bronze letters.

The Exquisite Form Brassiere Company purchased the building around 1950 and leased the ground floor to the Guaranty Trust Company.  On June 12, 1960, The New York Times reported that the Exquisite Form, Inc. (it had dropped the Brassiere from its name by now) intended to move its operation to Pelham Manor, New York.  The article said the firm had offered its tenants to buy the building, "who will jointly own the twelve-story structure in the same way that a cooperative apartment building is owned by its tenants."

Instead, in 1961, the General Electric Company leased the entire building for its international division.  The New York Times reported on August 10, "Renovations have been made, including full air-conditioning, remodeling of the lobby and the installation of automatic elevators."

General Electric Company occupied the Manice Building through the early 1970s.  Then, on October 17, 1976, The New York Times reported, "A 61-year-old [sic] office building in Murray Hill...is about to be recycled into a luxury apartment house."  Joel I. Picket, president of the Gotham Construction Corporation, had purchased the building for $1.8 million.  He announced that he and his partners would "turn the building into a 180-unit apartment house."

From the street, the striking Manice Building, described in 1912 as the head of its class, is nearly unchanged.

photographs by the author

The 1891 Olivet Memorial Church - 59-63 East Second Street

 

In 1855, the Olivet Memorial Church was established on East Second Street, between First and Second Avenues.  The refined residential neighborhood in which it sat, however, was already seeing change, as waves of German immigrants poured into the district.  That year, New York City had the third largest German population in the world--outranked only by Berlin and Vienna.  The demographics affected the Olivet Memorial Church, as well.  In 1891, The New York Times recalled that in 1867:

When that portion of the city where it is situated changed its character as regards to the nationality of its population, it was determined to make it largely a mission church, and it was placed under the care of the New-York City Mission and Tract Society.

The newspaper explained that the Olivet Mission at the time, "stood back from the street and was accessible only by an alleyway."  On April 26, 1885, The New York Times described, "Olivet Mission, situated in one of the most densely populated German quarters of the city, is the centre of a wide and varied system of practical and intelligent work among the poor."  Its outreach included an Industrial School where boys learned manual crafts and girls were taught domestic skills like cooking and sewing.

In 1890, A. K. Ely, "who was interested in the church," according to The New York Times on December 28, 1891, "purchased the lots in front [of the mission]...and Mr. D. H. McAlpin and Mrs. Pyle, his sister, gave $65,000 for the new church building."  The commission was given to the architectural firm of J. C. Cady & Co., founded by Josiah Cleaveland Cady.

Completed in December 1891, the church was clad in undressed Kentucky limestone.  Unlike many Gothic Revival churches of the period, with airy spires and bell towers, Olivet Memorial Church presented a somewhat fortress presence, with full-height crenulated turrets that divided the severely rectangular facade into three bays.  The square-headed openings of the first floor gave way to striking Gothic windows at the second that rose to dramatic points decorated with crockets.  The top floor morphed to Romanesque with the windows forming regimented arcades.

Two boys play on the otherwise deserted sidewalk across from the church on May 9, 1934.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The Olivet Memorial Church opened on December 27, 1891.  The New York Times commented, "Indeed, in many respects it resembles the new buildings in England that are being built in harmony with the forward movement there."  The article described, "it has been treated in so pronounced an architectural style, and has such pleasing features of decoration and fitting, that it is not surpassed in beauty by any of the more costly churches in town."

The auditorium accommodated about 1,000 people, "in view of the pulpit," said The Times, adding, "there are fourteen handsome class rooms, five halls for large classes, and a gymnasium about 50 by 70 feet."  There were, as well, rooms for the teachers and workers and an apartment for the janitor.  Calling it "a practical building," it was designed not only for church services, but for instruction, "secular, industrial and religious."

Among the "industrial" spaces in the building was "the great sewing room," as described by The Evening World, where local women and girls worked at needlework.  On April 13, 1895, the newspaper remarked, "there is a cheery hopefulness in their worn faces, for they are earning 15 cents an hour with their needles, and the 15 cents buys double its value in the made-up garments they turn out."  (The 153 women did not receive cash money, but credit to buy the finished clothing.)  The article said, "each of them is wed to poverty, and but for the two or three hours spent in the great sewing-room each week they and their loved ones could never have aprons, undergarments, sheets and pillow cases, which they are able to earn in this way."

Women working in the Sewing Room.  The Evening World, April 13, 1895 (copyright expired)

The Lower East Side continued to attract immigrants from various European countries.  On December 5, 1895, The Sun noted that at the Olivet Memorial Church, "services in English, German, and Armenian are conducted."

Women and children in the tenements could look forward to one day away from their drudgery each year.  Churches of the Lower East Side annually hosted an excursion to a picnic grounds where members enjoyed music, food and games.  Because the men had to work, the excursions were almost entirely made up of women and children.

On July 21, 1905, 500 women and children from the Olivet Memorial Church lined up on the dock to board the iron steamboat Sirius to go to Huntington Harbor, Long Island.  The vessel would have 50 men aboard, including the crew and band.  Everyone in line assuredly knew that this was the very same dock which, a year earlier, women and children from St. Luke's German Lutheran Church lined up to board the General Slocum.  That excursion ended tragically, with the General Slocum burning to the water line and 1,000 passengers killed.

As the Sirius neared North Brother Island, where the General Slocum disaster had occurred, a "screw boat," the W. G. Payne, forced the Sirius off course and into the rocks.  The Sun reported, "The grinding as the Sirius went aground scared her passengers, and a moment later, when the boat suddenly stopped, men, women and children were thrown from their camp stools.  The band was playing, and it stopped suddenly."

As panic began to sweep throughout the crowd, according to The Sun, "Then some one with horse sense ordered the band to get busy, and the music acted like magic."  Captain William Pierce got the vessel off the rocks, but it was rapidly taking on water.  He beached the Sirius on the mud flats to prevent it from sinking.  The Evening World praised, "A few moments' hesitation, an unsteady hand at the wheel, and the steamer would have gone to the bottom, carrying hundreds of dead with her."  The passengers were offloaded from the disabled vessel, and while the steamboat company offered a substitute boat to continue to the Long Island Sound, "none of them felt in any mood to continue on the voyage," said The Evening World.

Dressed in white, this Vacation Bible School of Olivet Memorial Church graduated in the auditorium on August 24, 1905.  Federation magazine, April 1906 (copyright expired)

The Olivet Memorial Church continued its work in the neighborhood until 1942, when it merged with the Middle Collegiate Church at Second Avenue and 7th Street.  A few months later, on January 22, 1943, The New York Times reported that "the old stone building at 59-63 Second Street" had been sold by the New York City Mission Society to the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America.

"The church now will be known as the Pro-Cathedral, and will house the Cathedral Church and the executive offices of the chancery of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church," explained the article.  Prior to the Russian Revolution, the episcopal seat in New York City was St. Nicholas Cathedral on East 97th Street.  After the change of government, a battle erupted between the Most Reverend Metropolitan Planton and the Soviet Government.  The Soviets won.

On November 21, 1926, The New York Times reported, “Trinity Episcopal Parish has turned over to Archbishop Platon, deposed Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, and to the thousands of New York Russians who remained faithful to him, one-half of St. Augustine's Chapel, 105 East Houston Street, for a Russian Cathedral”  The parish worshiped there until finding a permanent home here.  The former Olivet Memorial Church was rechristened the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection.  The interior was redecorated in traditional Byzantine style, including bold colors and iconography.  

As had been the case with the Olivet Memorial Church a century earlier, the services here were not only in English.  On January 6, 1964, the Slavic Christmas Eve, The New York Times reported, "At the Metropolitan's cathedral, the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection, 59 East Second Street, there will be a Slavonic service tonight at 7 o'clock and an English one at midnight."

Two years later, on October 27, 1966, The Villager reported on an upcoming three-day bazaar.  The article said in part, "Times changed; buildings were torn down; the parish dwindled, a familiar situation with urban churches.  But the cathedral remains, and continues to be the episcopal seat, and as such, it has to sustain a choir, clergy, servets, and staff, which have been increasingly difficult to finance.  That is why the coming bazaar is being held."

Despite the changes in the neighborhood--or because of them--nearly a century after the parish moved into the building, the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection continues to be an important presence in its community.  Its website says, "Though founded by immigrants from the former Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, our parish membership is ethnically diverse including a large contingent of Georgians, and nearly 40 percent of our members are adult converts to the Orthodox faith."

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

The 1869 John Hampton House - 110 East 61st Street

 

When the stoop was removed, the door was lowered, resulting in comical proportions and an absurd transom.

In the early 1870s, John Hampton, a dealer in grates, and his family lived at 110 East 61st Street, one of a row of identical Italianate-style homes erected in 1869.  The three-story-and-basement house was faced in brownstone and was 18.6-feet-wide.  While the upper floor windows wore prominent cornices, the openings of the parlor floor were distinguished with Renaissance inspired pediments.

In 1876, Julius and Ida Binge purchased 110 East 61st Street.  Julius was a partner in the brokerage firm Binge & Curie, founded in 1868 with Charles Curie.  The couple had a daughter, Lottie.  The Daily Canadian would later say the family, "possessed wealth estimated at several million dollars."  It was most likely the Binges who added an attic floor with two prominent dormers.

An expert on customs duties, Binge filed many claims for over-charges.  The Daily Canadian said, "It is said that these over-charges on customs amounted to nearly $4,000,000, and that he received $1,000,000 for his service."

Julius Binge was focused on a more personal overcharge in 1878.  He won a suit against the city that year, awarding him $10.40, the "amount of Croton water rent, for 1876, paid twice on premises No. 110 East 61st street."  

Decades later, in 1907, readers of newspapers across the country would be riveted by the shocking arrest of Lottie, who was now married to Leopold Wallau.  After Julius's death, Ida had moved into the Wallau house at 68 East 80th Street.  On February 18, 1907, The Cairo Bulletin ran the headline, "Woman Held For Mother's Death," and reported that Lottie was charged with first-degree murder in Ida's sudden death.  The Daily Canadian wrote, "Were Mrs. Binge's days of torturing invalidism shortened by poison administered by a sympathetic hand--an act of mercy that the patient daily begged from daughter, doctor and friend?"

Ida Binge, The Kentucky Post, February 21, 1907 (copyright expired)

Ida had suffered with "a cancerous growth [that] was literally eating through her whole system," said The Daily Canadian.  Public sympathy, according to numerous newspapers, was on Lottie's side.  And on March 19, 1907, a grand jury dismissed the charges.  The Scranton Truth ran a headline, "Mrs. Wallau, Freed Of Charge Of Killing Her Mother."

In the meantime, Julius and Ida Binge had sold 110 East 61st Street to Moses and Amelia Ottinger in 1880.  The Jewish Telegraphic Agency would recall decades later, Ottinger, "was born in Wittemberg [sic], Germany, immigrating to this country with the parents at the age of three."  Amelia, said the article, was "a New York city girl who was in the first graduating class of Normal, now Hunter College."  The couple had a son, Nathan, who entered New York City College in 1888.

Moses Ottinger and his brother Marx were real estate operators.  Among the structures they would erect while Moses lived here were 20 Bridge Street and the Appleton Building at 72 Fifth Avenue.

The Ottingers remained here until April 1899, when they sold the house to M. H. Campbell, triggering several rapid turnovers.  In 1902, Julia P. Jay purchased it for $45,000 (about $1.6 million in 2025), and sold it the following year to newlyweds Joseph Frailey Smith (known professionally as J. Frailey Smith) and his wife, the former Annie May Callaway.  The couple were married on November 20, 1902.

Born in Philadelphia in 1871, J. Frailey Smith was an attorney, described by The New York Times as "a well-known clubman and a Director in several corporations."  He was vice president of the Metallic Decorating Company, and a director in the Phenix Cap Company and the Phenix Cork Company. 

On October 23, 1906, The New York Times reported that Smith was said, "late last night to be dying in Roosevelt Hospital of injuries received in a fight early last Wednesday morning at Forty-fifth Street and Broadway."  The article said, "Every attempt was made to keep the facts from coming out, and the only details of the matter on the court records are contained in a short affidavit."  

The attempt to keep the embarrassing details from the public was understandable.  J. Frailey Smith had been with "a well-known actress playing in a Broadway Theatre," at Broadway and 45th Street around 3:00 a.m.  Smith became involved with a "dispute" with three men that escalated into fisticuffs.  Smith was knocked backward, fracturing his skull on the sidewalk.

Despite Smith's tenuous situation, he survived both his injuries and, apparently, the scandal of infidelity.  Annie was pregnant at the time of the humiliating coverage.  Five months later, on March 29, 1907, the couple had a son, Samuel Callaway.

Joseph Frailey Smith died on March 1, 1910 at the age of 38.  Annie left 110 East 61st Street in October 1912, when she rented it to Edward M. McIlvaine.  

The next year, on November 9, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Devereux Milburn will live at 110 East Sixty-first Street during the Winter season."  A week before the article, on November 2, The Sun published a half-page spread about the society marriage of Devereux Milburn and Nancy Gordon Steele.

Nancy Gordon Steele on her wedding day.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

A graduate of Oxford University, Devereux Milburn was the son of millionaire John G. Milburn.  An attorney, he was called by The Sun as, "the well known polo player."  Indeed, Western New York Heritage would describe Milburn as being, "remembered as possibly the best polo player this country ever produced."  

The Milburns in 1913, the year they rented 110 East 61st Street.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Devereaux and Nancy Milburn left 110 East 61st Street in 1916.  That October, Annie Smith leased the house to senior vice president of the Guaranty Trust Company, Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy.  He was, as well, a director of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the New York Trust Company, and five other corporations.

Born in 1878, Murphy graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1903 (after having already served as a volunteer in the Spanish-American War).  During World War I, as a rank of lieutenant colonel, he organized the American Red Cross in Europe.  While living here in 1918, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for "his foresight, wisdom, and untiring efforts" and "marked ability as assistant chief of staff of the 42d Division" during the war.

Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy was living at 110 East 61st Street in 1918, when this photograph was taken.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

On July 24, 1920, The New York Times reported that Annie May Smith had sold 110 East 61st Street.  It was purchased by Frank T. Wall and his wife, the former Emily Unckles, who were married in 1905.  Wall was the treasurer of the Wall Rope Works, Inc.  The couple had one son, Fenwick W. Wall.  (Frank had five children from a former marriage.)  Wall was born in Williamsburgh, New York in 1856, the son of the first mayor of Williamsburgh.  (Williamsburgh would later lose the "h" and be consolidated into Brooklyn.)  The family's country home was in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Moving into the 61st Street house with the Wall family was Emily's widowed father, Thomas H. Unckles.  He died here on January 20, 1922 at the age of 88 and his funeral was held in the parlor on January 22.

The Walls were in Greenwich on June 30, 1928 when Frank T. Wall died "after a prolonged illness," according to the Cordage Trade Journal.  Unlike his father-in-law, his funeral was not held in the house, but at St. Bartholomew's Church.

Emily Wall sold 110 East 61st Street the following year.  It began a chapter that would have shocked its previous socialite owners.  The basement level was converted to what ostensibly was a restaurant, called Chez Richard.  But court documents regarding a case tried in 1931 noted that the restaurant, "110 East 61st Street [was] of the kind known in those days as 'speakeasies.'"  And Chez Richard is included in the long list of speakeasies documented in David Rosen's book, Prohibition New York City--Speakeasy Queen Texas Guinan, Blind Pigs, Drag Balls & More.

A renovation completed in 1937 resulted in furnished rooms throughout the house (the restaurant was now gone).  In the process, the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered below grade.

The house as it appeared in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1948, 29-year-old writer Paul de Man moved into a room here.  Remembered today as a literary critic and literary theorist, he was struggling at the time.  In his The Double Life of Paul de Man, Evelyn Barish writes, 

Moving while skipping out on the rent became his best and probably his only budgeting technique.  He located an apartment through an acquaintance at 110 East Sixty-first Street...The building was a classic brownstone, converted to walk-up apartments, where he stayed for a few months before moving to the low-rent Jane Street in Greenwich Village.

A second renovation, completed in 1955, resulted in two apartments per floor.  A second entrance, slightly below the original, was now accessed by a metal staircase.

The building's most celebrated tenant came in 1956 when newly married Woody Allen and Harlene Susan Rosen moved in.  The budding filmmaker and actor was 20 years old, his bride was 17.  David Evanier, writes in Woody: The Biography, "They soon moved into a one-room apartment at 110 East Sixty-first Street."  Like Paul de Man, their residency would be short.  They moved to West 75th Street before long.

It appeared that the end of the line for 110 East 61st Street was near in the 1980s.  The Ausnit family had amassed a large "inventory" of buildings along the block in the 1950s.  Together, they seemed to be ripe for development.  Instead, however, the family liquidated the properties, including 110 East 61st Street, in 1987.

There are still ten apartments in the building.  

photographs by Ted Leather

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post.