photo by Allen Sheinman
John Watts, Sr. served as a member of the Colonial Assembly and the King's Council. In 1747, he acquired the 130-acre country estate of his father-in-law James DeLancey. He named the property Rose Hill after the Watts ancestorial home near Edinburgh, Scotland. The sprawling property ran from the East River to about what today is Park Avenue South, and from 21st to 30th Streets.
A loyalist, Watts lost Rose Hill Farm to the Committee of Forfeiture after the Revolution. John Watts, Jr., a patriot, was permitted to re-purchase much of the land. By his death in 1836, he had begun parceling off portions as the expanding city slowly encroached into the district.
In 1832, Lexington Avenue and Irving Place were opened. Between them, Samuel Ruggles would create Gramercy Square, opened in 1849, a private, landscaped park surrounded with elegant mansions.
The residential tenor of Gramercy Park spread up Lexington Avenue. Upscale, high-stooped brick and brownstone homes were erected before the outbreak of the Civil War, including that of Cephas Giovanni Thompson at 20 Lexington Avenue (renumbered 30 in 1867). The three-story-and-basement Italianate home was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.
Cephas Giovanni Thompson created unusual group portrait of his family around 1857. from the collection of the Boston Athenaeum.
Born on August 3, 1809 in Middleborough, Massachusetts, Thompson was the son of American painter Cephas Thompson. Cephas Giovanni and his wife, the former Mary Gouverneur Ogden, had three children. He took his family to Italy in 1852 and lived and worked there for seven years. While there, Thompson became close friends with expatriate American author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Upon relocating to New York City in 1859, the Thompsons moved into the newly-built Lexington Avenue house. That year Thompson listed his profession in the city directories as "historical and portrait painter." The Lexington Avenue house was hung with a striking art collection, described by The New York Times later as, "the fruit of many years of careful selection of Mr. C. G. Thompson...while residing in Rome, Florence, Naples, and other European cities, and contains examples of the production of the great masters in this particular branch of art from the fifteenth century down to the present day."
Cephas Giovanni Thompson, from Book of Artists, 1870 (copyright expired)
In March 1865, Thompson advertised the house for sale. It was purchased by Thomas J. McCahill as an investment property. That year, it was shared by the families of Edward J. Anglim, a drygoods merchant, and James H. Hollingshead, a partner in the electrotyping firm Gay & Hollingshead.
In 1867, Ann R. Rivers leased the residence. The widow of William Rivers, she operated it as a boarding house. Living with her were her adult children, Guy and Mary. Four years later, on January 5, 1871, Thomas J. McCahill transferred the title of 30 Lexington Avenue to Ann Maria Palmer. It would not be long afterward that she discovered that she had a problem tenant.
On June 9, 1872, the New York Dispatch reported the scandalous details of the divorce proceedings of William H. Kimball, "a wealthy dealer in refined oils," and his wife, Anna. Among the scurrilous charges against Kimball was that:
...on the morning of the 10th day of January, in the year 1872, at a house of assignation and prostitution, situated at No. 30 Lexington avenue, in the city of New York, kept by a woman known as Mrs. Rivers, did commit adultery with a woman.
Not surprisingly, the shocking publicity ended Ann R. Rivers's enterprise. Within a few months of the article, Maria Brown, another widow, was operating the boarding house.
Around 1896, the ground floor of 30 Lexington Avenue was converted for business purposes. The stoop was removed and a cast iron storefront installed. In 1898, a stationery store occupied the front and the Sanblom bicycle store was in the rear.
The ground floor was remodeled to a saloon in the summer of 1901 by Edward Lowry and Joseph Regan. The Evening World said on November 19, "The men are less than forty years old and have been friends for years. A few weeks ago they opened the saloon in partnership and no one supposed that their relations were not amicable and pleasant." The problem was, as the newspaper explained, "Lowry had no money and [Regan] put up the necessary cash." The lopsided business relationship quickly degenerated into animosity. Within weeks, Lowry started sending Regan threatening letters. On November 10, Regan's wife discovered and read one of the opened letters. "She became frightened," reported The Evening World.
The newspaper continued, "Last night, Regan says, he went to the saloon to tell Lowry to stop writing the letters, when the two got into an argument." Lowry pulled out a revolver and fired at his partner, the bullet piercing Regan's coat collar. The Evening World reported that the bullet, "inflicted only a trifling wound."
According to the bartender, John Page, Regan took out his revolver and fired three shots at Lowry. Despite Lowry's being hit in the arm, head and stomach, a physician at Bellevue Hospital stated that his condition "is not serious." Regan was arrested and Patrolman Stephenson told the court, "he had found a dirk knife and a dagger on Regan, besides the revolver."
Not surprisingly, Regan's and Lowry's saloon was short-lived. The space became home to the headquarters of The Armenian Union of America.
The estate of Ann Maria Palmer sold the property in 1908. As early as 1913, the former Armenian Union of America space was occupied by the 12th-14th Assembly District Headquarters. Not everything was politics within its confines. On February 18, 1915, for instance, the New York Evening Call reported, "The monthly entertainment and dance of the 12th-14th A. D. will take place Sunday evening, February 21, at headquarters, 30 Lexington avenue." The group shared the space with the Young People's Socialist League.
In March 1915, Catherine Sheridan leased the commercial space "for use as a physical culture restaurant," according to The Sun. The physical culture trend at the time promoted healthful living and nutritional foods. The increasingly Armenian population of the district was reflected in Pavillion d'Orient, an Armenian Restaurant, occupying the space in the post World War I years.
A renovation completed in 1937 created a store in the ground and former parlor floors. While traces of the 1890s cast iron storefront remained, an arcade-style show window was installed at the sidewalk level. The slightly-projecting store space was given a charming shingled roof that was copied in the replacement of the 1850s cornice. The Department of Buildings demanded that the second and third floors remain "vacant."
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
At mid-century, the store space was occupied by Parkside Cleaners. Briefly, in the early 1970s, it was home to the New Moravian Church.
Seen here in the mid-1980s, the building had little changed since the 1937 re-do. image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The last relic of pre-Civil War life on the block, a significant renovation came to 30 Lexington Avenue in 1997. Two stories with a peaked roof were added and a coat of stucco applied to the brick. Traces of the 1890s iron storefront survive. A renovation in 2013 resulted in one apartment each on the third through fifth floors.
many thanks to reader Allen Sheinman for suggesting this post
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