J. M. Felson's 1942 223 East 61st Street

image via compass.com

Born in Russia in 1886, Jacob M. Felson received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  At the time, the Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church, organized during the Civil War, worshipped in the distinctive Victorian Gothic building it had erected in the 1870s.  

When this photograph was taken in 1941, the church's days were numbered.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church merged with Christ Church Methodist at 60th Street and Park Avenue in 1933.  The following year, the congregation of the French Episcopal Eglise du Saint-Espirit moved into the church.  Just over a decade later, on October 7, 1941, The New York Sun reported that the Valcourt Realty Corporation had purchased the building.  "A six-story apartment house to contain forty-nine suites and 124 rooms and estimated to cost $200,000 will be erected on the site," said the article.  (The construction cost would translate to about $4 million in 2025.)

Throughout the Depression years, J. M. Felson had kept busy designing Art Deco and Art Moderne-style apartment buildings.  His design for 223 East 61st Street would be different--a 1940s take on Georgian architecture.  While Felson's fenestration--casements and tripartite windows--was distinctly modern, he gave the red brick facade details inspired from early American precedents.

The arched, double-doored entrance sat within a Georgian frame of fluted Doric columns, topped with an elegant swan's head pediment and stylized pineapple.  The end windows wore splayed brick lintels with stone keystones.  The building was crowned by a brick pediment decorated by a central shield flanked by swags.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

The apartments, eight per floor, became home to middle- and upper-middle class tenants.  Among the initial residents were Faith B. LeLacheur and Clarissa Cooper.  A graduate of Wellesley College, Faith was a nurse.  Clarissa was a teacher of French and a translator of French literary works.  She received her master and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.  In the 1920s she obtained her pilot license and was an award-winning driver for the American Women's Voluntary Service during World War II.  The couple decorated their apartment, according to The New York Times later, with an "extensive array of antiques."

Other early residents were journalist Robert Simpson and his wife, the former Luz Rudolph.  Born in 1896, Simpson was the son of a journalist.  Like his father, Robert worked for newspapers in Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia before relocating to New York and joining The Evening World.

photograph by Lowell Cochran

In 1929, Simpson joined The New York Times on the city desk.  He would eventually focus on scientific issues, especially plant genetics and world problems.  While working at The Times, he contributed many articles to other popular and trade periodicals, like his scathing article for The Saturday Review that rebutted claims of Soviet geneticist, T. D. Lysenko.

Simpson left The New York Times in 1959 and joined the public relations firm of Thomas J. Deegan Company.  He was public relations director for the Preakness at Pimlico Race Track in 1962, and was publicity consultant for Pan American Airways.

Typical of the Simpsons' neighbors in the building were Russell P. Kantor and his wife, the former Mabel Chamberlain.  Kantor was president of Victor Gloves, Inc. and grand director of ceremonies of the Masonic Order's Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Clarissa Burnham and Faith B. LeLacheur still occupied their apartment in 1979.  Clarissa died on June 29 that year at the age of 84.

Vivian Williams cleaned the couple's apartment once a week.  Three months after Clarissa's death, on October 17, 1979, Williams entered and immediately noticed a grandfather clock knocked to the floor in the entry hall.  She discovered Faith LeLacheur's body in the bedroom.  The 81-year-old had been murdered by "multiple stab wounds," according to police, who would say only, "that she had 'possibly' been raped," reported The New York Times.  The apartment had not been ransacked and, apparently, not robbed.  There were indications, however, that the elderly woman had valiantly struggled with her attacker.

There are still eight apartments per floor and, outwardly, little has changed to J. M. Felson's reserved design.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post.