Architect J. A. Webster turned to the Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles in designing a row along the north side of West 122nd Street between Morningside and Manhattan Avenues for Joseph W. and A. Alonzo Teets in 1888. The eleven three-story-and-basement, brownstone fronted residences would cost the brothers $100,000 to erect, or about $3.3 million in 2025.
The houses were essentially identical. Their tall stoops were guarded with beefy iron newels and railings. Each floor was belted with carved foliate bands, and the windows wore prominent molded cornices supported by fluted brackets. The two end residences, including 341 West 122nd Street, stood apart. Instead of the heavy entrance brackets and cornices of the interior homes, Webster gave these doorways arched Gibbs surrounds, the tympana of which were filled with intricate Renaissance Revival carvings.
The the entrances of the interior houses sat below projecting cornices. No. 341 is a the far right.
J. W. and A. A. Teets sold 341 West 122nd Street to Cord D. and Caroline Degenhardt on December 7, 1889. The couple paid $16,000 for the house, equivalent to about $547,000 today.
Degenhardt was born in Germany and moved to New York City in 1873. He was a director in the Salvador Brewing Company and in 1880 founded C. D. Degenhardt & Co., a saloon at 371 Greenwich Street. A Souvenir of New York's Liquor Interests described it as being "finely fitted in solid hand-carved mahogany throughout. It is supplied with handsome mirrors, ornamental decorations, toilet and wash rooms, and all modern improvements in every department."
Two years before buying 341 West 122nd Street, Degenhardt took on a partner, another German native, H. Prange, and opened a second saloon at 105 South Street, which Prange managed. A Souvenir of New York's Liquor Interests said it was "fitted in the same artistic and attractive style as the first-mentioned house." The brochure stressed, "the trade is first-class in every respect."
It was common for even well-to-do families to take in a boarder or roomer. In April 1890, the Degenhardts advertised, "Front and rear parlors in private house, elegantly furnished; en suite or single; references." In 1892, a Dr. Mortimer roomed here.
On May 2, 1907, the Degenhardts sold 341 West 122nd Street to attorney and broker Charles E. Silkworth and his wife, the former Alice A. Parks. Born in 1857 and 1859 respectively, George and Alice had five sons.
Although the Silkworths do not appear to have regularly taken in a roomer, Dorothy David Hood lived with the family briefly in 1919. An actress and playwright, she was known to theater audiences as Dorothy Raynol. While living here, she was engaged in a court battle with William T. Wager over his cousin's will.
Dorothy was the sole beneficiary of Sarah Duffy Hurtig's estate. Known on stage as Sadie Lorraine, Sarah had been Dorothy's "friend and companion since childhood," as worded by The Evening World. Sarah Hurtig owned a country home at St. James, Long Island and a townhouse on Riverside Drive. She died on March 13, 1919 and her estate was valued as much as $1.76 million in today's terms. Wager insisted that a subsequent will was in existence. Happily for Dorothy Hood, on November 12, 1919, the will was upheld.
The census the following year shows that living with Charles and Anne were their three unmarried sons, George F., Amos P., and Theodore J., and a maid, Julia Schroeder. At least one of the sons was involved in the Silkworth Realty Company by now.
In March 1921, the Silkworths sold 341 West 122nd Street to Winifred Carroll. Interestingly, George Silkworth was still listed here as late as 1924, apparently leasing his former family home from Carroll.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
In the early Depression years, the residence was operated as a rooming house. An advertisement in The New York Medical Week in 1932 offered, "Pleasant back parlor for doctor's office, use of front room for reception; prompt attention given to bell and telephone, convenient bus, El, subway."
Rooming here in the summer of 1940 was 20-year-old John Brown. He had worked as a janitor in a Genovese drugstore in Queens for three years, but was laid off earlier that year. Around the same time, a string of pharmacy break-ins began. Queens detectives "have been trying to solve a series of nearly a dozen burglaries in the Genovese chain of drug stores in the last few months," reported the Long Island Star-Journal on July 12, 1940. The article said that detectives had arrested John Brown.
The sleuths found evidence at the scene of a break-in on July 8 that lead them to Brown. He had made off with $15 in cash and cameras valued at $45 in that heist. The article said officers, "arrested the youth at his home, where they reported recovering a large amount of the stolen merchandise."
In the early 1990s, as many as ten families occupied 341 West 122nd Street. Then, in 1995, it was purchased by Yoel and Shoshana Borgenich. The upper floors were restored to a private house and an apartment was installed in the basement level. The couple restored the surviving interior details.
image via cocoran.com
In his 2016 The Jews of Harlem, Jeffrey S. Gurock writes that while living here the Borgenich family "grew to five--Rex came along in 2006, Theo in 2008, and Delia followed in 2009--and they seemed quite happy on a street that is becoming increasingly gentrified." The family sold the house for $2.75 million in 2012.
Other than the replaced stoop ironwork, outwardly little else has changed in more than 135 years.
photographs by the author
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