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.
Among 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, "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
