photograph by Carole Teller
North Street was so named because it marked the northern boundary of New York City in the 18th century. Development reached this far north by the 1820s, when smart, brick-faced homes and shops began lining its sides. By 1808, Nicholas Bayard III had cut a road through his property to the west which he called Houstoun Street. It was named for his daughter's husband, William Houstoun, who married Mary Bayard in 1788. Later, he extended Houstoun Street (later corrupted to Houston Street) to meet North Street, which became East Houston Street.
Typical of the houses on the block between Norfolk and Suffolk Streets was 251 East Houston Street, described in The New York Times later, as a "2-story and attic and under-cellar Brick house and lot." Eighteen-feet-wide, it was faced in Flemish bond red brick. Its Federal design included an arched entrance above a short stoop, stepped paneled lintels, and one or two dormers.
By the mid-1850s, William V. and Julia Webster occupied the house. William was listed as a clerk, a term that ranged from an office worker to a highly responsible and well-paid financial position. Beginning around 1860, the couple shared their home with George Marshall and his family. The house became a bit more crowded when a young couple, William H. and Susan Dukes, moved in. The Websters were surely well acquainted with Susan. She had lived next door with her widowed mother, Sarah Ann Vanderbeck. Sarah died there on November 12, 1862 at the age of 51. It was most likely shortly afterward that the Dukes moved into No. 251.
The year 1863 was significant for all three families. On April 30, Susan Dukes died here at the age of 23. Her funeral was held in the parlor. On August 25, R. Marshall was drafted into the Union Army, and on September 10 Julia Webster died at the age of 86. The house was offered for sale that year. The advertisement noted that "gas and Croton water" had been introduced, a significant upgrade.
Isabella White, the widow of Thomas White, and John C. Devoe and his family shared the house at least through 1865. By 1867, it was home to the Alexander D. Farrell family. Farrell and his wife, the former Mary A. Hendricksen, had a son, Alexander Washington Farrell, born in 1848.
Farrell operated Alexander D. Farrell & Co., a mattress firm, on 283 Canal Street. The younger Alexander is listed in 1868 as being in the hardware business (he was 20 years old at the time).
The social and financial status of the Farrells was reflected in an advertisement in the New York Herald on March 24, 1868:
251 East Houston St.--[Needed] A Competent girl to do plain cooking, washing and ironing.
In more affluent households, those job descriptions would have been clearly defined. To ask the cook in a wealthy family to do laundry would have been highly insulting and grounds for leaving.
The Farrells left 251 East Houston Street in 1871. Their former home became a boarding house. Its residents the following year were highly varied. Mary E. Everett worked as a binder, William Glaser was a clerk in the Custom House, Moritz Selig was listed as a "pedlar," Andrew Senges was a machinist, and George Walker was a clerk.
Around 1873, the basement level was converted for business. Herman Hirschfield, who lived nearby at 257 East Houston Street, ran his shoe shop here. That year he advertised, "Wanted--A female operator, American, on ladies' shoes; Howe's machine; must understand fitting."
Change came in 1879 when the Virginia Day Nursery moved into "a few rooms" on the lower floors. Founded in February that year, it was run by the City Mission. The facility took in children under six years old whose mothers needed to work during the day. The toddlers were taken care of for "a nominal charge of 5 to 10 cents a day," according to the Directory to the Charitable and Beneficent Societies and Institutions of the City of New York in 1883. The most expensive charge would translate to about $3.25 in 2025.
The Virginia Day Nursery moved to 632 East 5th Street in 1886. It continued to grow and in 1894, Mrs. A. M. Dodge described the Virginia Day Nursery in the Handbook of Sociological Information saying, in part, "The total of number of children cared for in the past three months was seven thousand."
In the meantime, a permit was issued in 1886 to conduct the upper floors of 251 East Houston Street as a lodging house. Lodging houses were the lowest form of accommodations, after boarding and rooming houses. Their transient residents paid on a nightly basis and received no other services.
The former nursery space was converted to a meeting space, Mayer's Hall. On August 17, 1888, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "At No. 251 East Houston street yesterday evening the James Munroe [sic] Club, of the Tenth Assembly district, organized as a Cleveland campaign club." The Evening World added that at the, "overflow meeting of the James Monroe Independent Citizens' Association...Mr. Julius Harburger delivered an address, showing the benefits to be derived by the people in another term of Democratic rule with Cleveland and Thurman."
Construction worker Jacob Schwenk was renting a room here on September 26, 1888. He was working on a new building on Willet Street that day when three men "annoyed" him," as described by The Evening World. "He picked up a stone and threw it," said the article. Tragically, it missed the men and struck and seriously injured five-year-old Benjamin Frinz. Schwenk was arrested for the incident.
In April 1894, apparel trimmings merchant and parttime real estate operator Max Schwartz purchased the building. He and his wife (who was highly involved in the Ladies' Hungarian Aid Society) moved in, and he converted Mayer's Hall to a saloon-restaurant.
Policeman Conrad Schillenberger was indicted on October 26, 1894 "for assaulting Thomas J. Stanton" on August 8, as reported by The Sun. The officer's bail was fixed at $2,000 and he offered "as bondsman Max Schwartz, a liquor dealer, of 251 East Houston street," said the article. "Schwartz was not considered satisfactory for some reason which was not given," reported The Sun and Schillenberger remained in jail.
In March 1897, Schwartz hired architect Louis F. Heinecke to remodel the interiors and to raise the attic to a full floor. The renovations cost Schwartz the equivalent of $78,000 today. Heinecke matched the proportions of the second-floor openings and gave them cast metal cornices. The bracketed terminal cornice was crowned with a triangular pediment.
In 1941, the first floor wore a veneer of marble to accommodate a synagogue. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Among the tenants in 1897 were the Smith and Miller families. A year earlier, gold had been discovered in the Yukon Territory in Canada, sparking the Klondike Gold Rush. Thousands of prospectors flooded into the territory. Among those hoping to find their fortunes were 17-year-old William Miller and 19-year-old John Smith. On July 27, they and two other stalwart adventurers--brothers John and Robert Thomas, 18 and 17 years old respectively--struck out. They did not get far.
At 4:00 the following morning, Patrolman Glock, "picked up four boys, who were drenched to the skin and shivering from the cold, on the Newark Plank Road near Glendale Woods," reported the Jersey City News. The would-be prospectors were taken to the station house where they were warmed and dried out. The article said, "They had among the four of them $2.06, a razor and two pocket knives."
Max Schwartz brought back Louis F. Heinecke in November 1899 to make minor renovations. They most likely had to do with the converting of the former saloon space to a cleaning establishment.
Around midnight on March 28, 1904, burglars broke into the Metropolitan Cleaning and Dyeing Company space. They dragged the safe to the rear of the store and drilled "an eight-inch hole in the inner metal wall," as described by The New York Times. They extracted the $65 in cash and started work on the inner compartment when Max Schwartz, who had been wakened by the noise, banged on the door. "The burglars got out by a rear window and ran away," said the article. Happily for the cleaner's manager, named Bruckner, Schwartz had arrived just in time. Bruckner had put his wife's $1,000 worth of diamonds in the inner compartment.
Max Schwartz retained possession of 251 East Houston Street at least through 1921. Shortly afterward, the basement and parlor floors became home to the Hellman Funeral Chapel, run by Moe Hellman and his wife, Bertha. It was likely during this renovation that the parlor windows were replaced with three arched openings.
A funeral that captivated the public's attention was that of Police Officer Edward Winger, who was fatally shot at the corner of Rivington and Norfolk Streets on July 18, 1929. During his funeral two days later, undercover officers surveyed the "crowd of sightseers" on the street, said The New York Times, who were "seeking Winger's murderer mingled with the mourners."
What could have been a tragic and macabre incident was averted by one of the Hellmans' quick-thinking hearse drivers on October 15, 1933. A New York City resident died in Saratoga, New York and Harry Pomper drove there to bring the body back to the Hellman Funeral Chapel. He was on the Bronx River Road at around 6 a.m. when the carburetor "sputtered." Pomper said, "flames suddenly shot out from beneath the hood." He pulled over, removed the corpse and pulled a nearby fire alarm. Four fire engine companies responded. "After repairs were made, the hearse continued its trip to New York City," said the Yonkers Herald Statesman. The fire caused $75 of damage to the vehicle.
The Hellman Funeral Chapel was replaced by the East Side Branch of the Socialist Workers' Party headquarters in the late 1940s. Then a renovation in 1949 resulted in a synagogue in the basement and former parlor floors, two apartments on the second floor and one on the third.
On July 15, 1988, Newsday reported that Cafe Bustelo, "recently moved from Avenue B in the East Village to a former synagogue at 251 E. Houston St. on the Lower East Side." The article said it "features stream-of-consciousness monologues, post-punk folk musicians and a 'preponderance of poets.'"
NOoSphere Gallery, a "nonprofit storefront," as described by The New York Times, opened in 2011 "as a showcase for Norwegian artists." It was replaced by Gaia Italian Cafe, which recently closed.
photograph by the author
The original stoop has been replaced by a metal version and a stucco-like material covers the first floor facade, which now has a show window. At some point the metal cornices of the second floor windows were removed, revealing the forms of the Federal lintels. Two Stars of David remain on the facade as relics of the synagogue period of the venerable structure.
many thanks to Carole Teller for prompting this post
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment