The Michael H. Norton House - 42 Charlton Street

 

Thomas B. Ridder was a successful tobacco merchant and a councilman.  In 1851 he was leasing the newly-built, three-story house at 42 Charlton Street, erected by E. Young.  Above the brownstone basement, the house was faced in warm red brick.  The paneled piers flanking the entrance were a handsome and unusual detail.  The building's simple wooden cornice was typical of the style.

Sharing the house was the Samuel Cohen family.  Samuel and Dinah Cohen had a daughter, Mary.  Samuel was a fur merchant on Water Street.  Sadly, Mary died after a short illness on September 29, 1852 at the age of 13.

On February 8, 1853, 42 Charlton Street was sold at auction.  The announcement described the 23-foot-wide home as "built with the modern improvements.  Gas introduced into the house."  It added, "Chandeliers go with the house."

The purchaser paid $8,400 (about $342,000 in 2025 terms) for the house, which he continued to lease.  The Riddles and Cohens remained through 1855, after which Moses Souza, an importer, and Rev. Morgan Dix moved in.

Born on November 1, 1827, Dix was the son of Major General John Adams Dix, a U.S. Senator from 1845 to 1849, Secretary of the Treasury in 1861, Governor of New York from 1873 to 1874, and a notable figure during the Civil War.  Rev. Morgan was assistant minister of Trinity Church.

Rev. Dix and the Souza family remained until the spring of 1863.  In April the house was offered "for sale or to let."  By now, according to the ad, running water had been introduced.

It was purchased by Dr. Edward Fields.  Living with him and his wife, Iodema, were their daughter Jennie and her husband John D. Slayback.  In April 1865, the population of the house increased by one with the birth of the Slaybacks' daughter, also named Jennie.  Four months later, on August 17, the infant died.  Her funeral was held in the parlor.

It was most likely the Fields who modernized the house.  Italianate stoop railings and hefty newels were installed and the parlor windows were extended nearly to the floor.

Dr. Fields was drawn into a scandalous case in 1865.  On the night of September 25, Dr. Grindle, who ran a lying-in hospital brought a patient, Lucy Sagendorf, to the boarding house of Mary Julia Rolf.  According to Mary, he had told her that Lucy "had inflammation of the bowels."  The doctor's wife stayed with Lucy overnight.  The next evening, Mrs. Grindle brought a young man, James J. Hicks, and after about ten minutes, according to Mary Rolf, Mrs. Grindle came down in great haste and inquired of me whether she could find a minister."  Before long, Rev. Dr. J. K. Wardle arrived and performed a marriage at the bedside.

Mary Rolf became concerned around midnight, and sent for Dr. Fields.  He later told investigators, "she was very pale and...she complained of intense pain in the intestines."  He noted, "she had been leeched."  When he asked Mary if Lucy had been treated by another physician, she said no, apparently protecting Dr. Grindle.  Fields visited Lucy that afternoon, and she died later that night.  He issued a death certificate citing the cause of death as peritonitis.

Dr. Grindle's lying-in hospital (a facility for pregnant women) doubled as an illegal abortion clinic, as it turned out.  And Mary Julia Rolf's boarding house was often used for the recuperating women.  Rolf testified on September 27, "I have recently had two cases of confinement and about twenty cases of miscarriage in my house."  In the trial that followed, Fields had to defend himself against suspicion of collaborating in the fatal abortion by having falsely listed the cause of death.

Dr. Edward Fields died in 1866.  Iodema sold the house to Michael H. and Marietta L. Norton in June 1870 for $30,000 (about $723,000 today).  Born in Ireland in 1838, Michael H. Norton was brought to New York as a child.  He "developed into an athlete and acquired considerable science as a sparrer," said The Sun.  He gave up boxing for politics and was elected an alderman in 1864 and to the State Senate in 1868.  Also elected to the Senate that year was William M. Tweed, later known as "Boss" Tweed, and the two became close friends.

Living with Michael and Marietta were Michael's brothers Peter and Edward.  (Another brother, John, and his family lived nearby at 50 King Street.)  

The Charlton Street house was again the scene of a funeral on May 21, 1871.  Edward H. Norton died at the age of 25.  The Sun reported that the parlor was filled members of several political groups, who followed the procession to the Church of St. Anthony of Padua afterward for a solemn requiem mass.

Michael Norton's generosity kept him from amassing wealth.  His financial condition was hinted at in an article on December 4, 1872 in The Evening Telegram, which said,

Yesterday Senator Michael Norton left his house, 42 Charlton street, with a large diamond stud fastening his shirt collar.  He got into a Bleecker street car and rode down to the Court of Special Sessions.  Soon afterward he discovered that while the gold setting remained attached to his collar the diamond was missing.  The Senator is a poor man, and can illy afford to lose so large a diamond.  He will pay a liberal reward for its return.

Peter Norton and his wife had a son, John M., in 1866.  The little boy died at the age of 7 on June 7, 1873.  The New York Herald reported on June 9, "The funeral will take place from the residence of his uncle, Michael Norton, No. 42 Charlton street, at twelve o'clock to-day."

Michael H. Norton, The Sun, April 24, 1889 (copyright expired)

In 1885 Michael H. Norton was appointed a justice in the District Court with a salary of $6,000 (about $196,000 today).

On April 23, 1889, The New York Sun reported, "Civil Justice Michael Norton is lying dangerously ill at his residence, 42 Charlton street."  The 55-year-old judge had slipped and fallen a week earlier resulting, according to the newspaper, "as he is a heavy man, in serious internal injuries."   The New York Evening World remarked, "Justice Norton is one of the most widely known and popular public men in New York.  He has earned a good deal of money in his lifetime, but has been so generous and charitable that he has remained poor."

Norton died just before midnight in the Charlton Street house on April 23, 1889.  Two days later, The Evening World reported, "The modest, old-fashioned house No. 42 Charlton street, in which Civil Justice Michael Norton passed the latter years of his life, was this morning visited by throngs of friends and admirers of the dead leader, who came to take a last look at his face and to condole with his family."

Amazingly, the day after Norton's death, his brother John died.  The Evening World remarked, "When he died he did not know that Michael had passed away twenty-three hours previously."

On April 26, The Evening World reported on Michael Norton's funeral.

A sweet, languorous perfume from a room full of flowers drifted through the open doors of the old-fashioned mansion at 42 Charlton street this morning.

In the centre of the room, in the midst of the perfume-giving flowers, stood a crape-covered casket containing the earthly remains of Civil Justice Michael Norton, who in life was called "The Thunderbolt."

Among the mourners were prominent politicians like Mayor Hugh J. Grant, Tammany bigwig Richard Croker, aldermen and a senator.  The Evening World remarked, "In the street in front of the house there were hundreds of people who had known and loved Mike Norton."

Marietta L. Norton sold the house to John C. and Catherine McGinn in July 1891 for $20,000 (about $691,000 in 2025).  Living with the couple were their adult children: Edward F., who was in the bottle business; Mary T. Sinnott and her husband; and Julia L. Bishop, her husband, and their young son, James.  Another son, Jonathan J. Bishop, lived elsewhere.

Despite what must have been snug conditions, they took in a boarder.  In 1892, Norman J. Osborne, a clerk, lived here; and in 1894 and 1895 Elizabeth Schaefer, a widow, lived with the family.

On August 21, 1904, James Bishop, now a teenager, placed an advertisement in the New York Herald looking for a job.  He obviously had not yet settled on a career path.  "Young man (17) wishes a position at anything.  James Bishop, 42 Charlton st."  Seven years later, however, he seems to have charted a course for himself, and applied to the city for a job as a police patrolman.

By March 20, 1915, the McGinn siblings had inherited the house in equal shares.  It was sold in November 1920 to their tenants, Lucy and Joseph Tomasullo.  Like Michael Norton, Tomasullo was a former boxer, known in the ring as Kid Thomas.  He now was a part owner of the White Poodle cabaret at 216 Bleecker Street.

While the Tomasullos were still renting 42 Charlton Street, the White Poodle was the scene of violence.  The New York Morning Telegraph reported that when members of the Hudson Dusters Gang attempted to rob the restaurant, it became "the scene of a battle" with police.  One patrolman, Michael Batto, was stabbed in the face.

On the morning of December 26, 1923, Joseph Tomasullo left an apartment at 216 Hancock Street where The New York Times said, "several men had been playing cards."  An assailant who was lying in wait in the hall shot him twice.  The New York Morning Telegraph said one of the bullets, "entered the chest and ploughed its way to the heart, and the other lodged in the left side."  

Tomasullo's brother Anthony heard the shots "and found his brother on the floor of the hallway," reported The New York Times.  He took him in a taxi to St. Vincent's Hospital where he was pronounced dead.  Police surmised that Tomasullo was "the victim of a Greenwich Village gamblers' feud."

It is unclear how long Lucy Tomasullo remained at 42 Charlton Street.  By the last decades of the century, the house received a coat of blue paint.

The house in 1983 retained the stone stoop railings and flat lintels, and was painted blue.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 2009, The Little Red School House, which owned the former Elisabeth Irwin High School next door, purchased the house and hired the architectural firm ABA Studio to connect the structures internally.  Included in the extensive renovations was the removal of the blue paint, and the addition of molded window cornices.  Writing in Curbed on February 22, 2010, Peter Davies reported, "From the street it all looks perfectly historical...But behind the landmarked facade there's all sorts of new stuff."

photographs by the author