The 1894 123 Madison Street

 

Margaret Reilly, often known as Maggie, purchased the three-story brick store and tenement on the northeast corner of Market and Madison Streets on July 2, 1891.  She paid Sophia L. Schroeder $27,500 for the property, or about $950,000 in 2025.  Once a refined neighborhood of prim, Federal-style homes, the area was now populated with thousands of struggling immigrants.

Exactly two years later Margaret Reilly hired architect F. Ienth to design a replacement building on the site.  (Maggie would have a convenient viewpoint to monitor the project's progress.  She lived directly across Madison Street at No. 124.)  Ienth, who is little known today, placed the construction costs at $22,000, equal to about $769,000 today.

Completed in 1894, the impressive-looking structure was a lush blending of Queen Anne and neo-Grec styles.  Two stores occupied the ground floor--one at 40 Market Street with a chamfered corner entrance and the other 123 Madison Street.  The upper floors were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The double-doored entrance sat within a columned portico, crowned with lacy iron cresting.  Ienth lavished the facade with hefty neo-Grec earred lintels and delicate fan-filled tympana, creating a visual feast.  He finished with an ambitious pressed metal cornice that included a handsome embossed shell on the Madison Street elevation.

Typical of the demographics at the time, the building filled with mostly Irish and Jewish immigrants.  Both groups suffered discrimination, as Heyman Weinstock discovered in the spring of 1895.

Weinstock was described by The Evening World as "a young cloakmaker."  On the evening of Saturday March 23, he was talking to friends on the corner of Delancey and Pitt Streets.  Plainclothes officer Jean C. Fargo "purposely jostled against him," according to Weinstock, who added that Fargo was "apparently under the influence of liquor."  The Evening World said, "When Weinstock remonstrated the officer assaulted him, at the same time throwing open his coat and exposing his shield."

Weinstock and his friends fled, "to avoid further violence," and the following Monday he went to the Delancey Street station to complain about Fargo.  After telling his story, according to Weinstock, the sergeant ordered, "Get out of here you -------."  The Evening World said, "Instantly several other officers and the doorman made a rush at him...Weinstock said he had to flee for his life." 

The Hughes family lived here in 1899 when 19-year-old Mary fell in love.  Her beaux was Samuel J. McGill, a 25-year-old river pilot.  On April 30, the couple went to the Jefferson Market Courthouse to be married.  They brought along two friends as witnesses.  The Morning Telegraph reported, 

The courtroom was crowded about 9 o'clock with an assemblage of drunks, crooks, disorderly persons and women of shady character, who had been gathered in the police dragnet, when a party of four, two pretty young women, escorted by two stalwart young men, entered.

The women were tastefully dressed in traveling costumes, and one in particular, a brunette, with large, expressive blue eyes, was blushing.

They explained their presence to Officer Peter Burns ("whose big walrus mustache is the envy of the court squad," according to The Morning Telegraph), and he passed the message to Magistrate Deuel.  The wise justice told the officer to have them "sit down for a while and watch some of the cases of ill-mated couples that may come up, and then if they want the ceremony performed, all right."

The four sat in the rear of the courtroom and listened to several hearings.  One concerned a woman who accused her husband of being an abusive drunk who failed to support their two children.  The husband was sentenced to three months in jail.  The woman's narrative did not dissuade the lovers.

Brownstone blocks on the second floor corner announce the streets.

The cautious magistrate questioned Mary "at length," including asking if her parents were aware of her intentions.  She insisted they did and explained, "Sam and myself want to get married without going through the formality of a reception.  He is going away tonight on his boat and I want to go along as his wife.  That is why we are in a hurry."  After questioning the witnesses, Magistrate Deuel was swayed and he "tied the knot in a few words."  

In March 1900, the storefront at 123 Madison Street was vacant.  Evangelist Wilson H. Dunlop leased it as a make-shift mission.  Dunlop "has been a familiar figure on the lower east side for four years," explained the Watertown, New York Daily Times.  "He endeavors to Christianize the Hebrews."  The Sun said, "The glass in the two show windows was backed up with colored lithographs of various scenes in the life of Christ and printed Christian texts."

Dunlop intended to open the mission on Sunday, March 4.  He started with a "parade," that began at 3:00.  The Sun reported, 

Dunlap has a long-bodied carryall [a type of wagon] decorated at the four corners with placards bearing Scriptural texts held aloft on uprights.  It is painted blue and drawn by two horses.  The driver is a negro and one of the Gospel party is a young negress.  Two young white women and a man preacher, who is a converted Jew, complete the party.  Dunlap himself is a cripple.

The intended converts, however, were not interested.  "No sooner had Dunlap's wagon drawn up than the crowd surrounded it, hooting and shouting."  They threw rotten vegetables "or other missiles" at the evangelist and his colleagues.  Finally, the wagon pulled to the curb at 123 Madison Street.  The party sat there for some time as they considered their next move.  The article said, "but as the crowd of youngsters around it was clearly hostile, no attempt was made to hold any religious service."  The wagon left at 4:00.

Dunlap's second attempt ended in tragedy.  At 3:00 on the afternoon of March 11, the wagon--which was outfitted with a melodeon (a type of parlor organ) and miniature altar--pulled up to 123 Madison Street again.  In the wagon with Dunlap were "two attendants and seven women and children, missionary workers," according to the Daily Times.

The newspaper reported, "A crowd of men and boys began to jeer him."  The wagon started off to the nearest police station, but it was blocked by the growing crowd.  "Stones were thrown at those in the wagon," reported the Daily Times.  Terrified, 19-year-old Mabel Russell grabbed the horsewhip and "plied it on the nearest heads."  A stone struck her in the face.  The article said, "She was knocked from the wagon and under the wheels, both of which passed over her body."  She was taken to Dunlap's residence, where a doctor said it was "doubtful if she would recover."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Dunlap never opened his mission.  Within months the space was occupied by A. Zeleza's sewing machine store.  He employed 16-year-old Louis Goldearr as a messenger boy.  

Early on the morning of January 9, 1901, Zeleza gave him $10 to purchase supplies at 39 Warren Street.  Goldearr took the Madison Street streetcar.  Later he recalled, "that opposite him sat a young man, who eyed him closely."  Goldearr did not return to 123 Madison Street, nor did he come home that night.

Two days later, the teen returned.  The New York Herald reported, "The boy was covered with mud and was almost fainting from exhaustion and exposure."  His story was nearly unbelievable.  Goldearr said the young man on the streetcar had following him to 39 Warren Street.  In the hallway, he was choked and robbed of the $10.  The New York Times related, "Then the lad says he lost consciousness, and woke up yesterday morning lying beside a gravestone in a cemetery."  That cemetery was in Mount Vernon, New York, 22 miles away.  Goldearr walked the entire distance to Manhattan.

A doctor said he was "suffering from exposure, exhaustion and possibly from the effects of some drug."  The teen was in critical condition.  A. Zeleza was supportive, saying he believed his story and stressed that Goldearr had frequently been entrusted with much larger amounts of cash.

R. Paviro's grocery store was in the 40 Market Street space in 1906, and by 1917, the Madison Street storefront was home to the Downtown Tammany Club.  Nearly six decades later, the commercial space at 123 Madison Street held the office of the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council.

In 2015, Mr. Fong's restaurant operated in 40 Market Street, and recently the Golden Diner opened in the Madison Street side.  F. Ienth's striking brick-and-brownstone building is a commanding presence in the neighborhood.

photographs by the author