The National Fine Art Foundry Bldg. - 218 East 25th Street

 

As early as 1853, Jane Clare, the widow of Peter Clare, operated the four-story boarding house at 108 East 25th Street (renumbered 218 in 1867).  In the rear yard was a two-story building.  Clare's tenants were working class, and in 1853 they included one laborer, two carpenters, a watchman (today's security guard), a smith, and a shoemaker.

Erected in 1848 and faced in running bond brick, the vernacular building was trimmed in brownstone.  Its pressed metal cornice was supported by creative brick corbels and dentils.

An advertisement in the New York Herald in April 1862 foreshadowed a major change to the property:  "To Let--At 108 East Twenty-Fifth Street, a four-story brick building; with two story Rear Building, suitable for business purposes."

The lower floors and back building were converted to the Chambers & Gabler piano factory, operated by Emil Gabler and Thomas H. Chambers.  Chambers had been making pianos as early as 1835.  He and Gabler partnered in 1863.

The least expensive of the 1866 instrument would translate to $7,250 in 2025.  Hannibal Daily Monitor, April 17, 1866 (copyright expired)

Chambers & Gabler dissolved in 1866 and Vinton & Son's pianoforte factory briefly operated in the space.  Charles A. Vinton had founded the business in the 1850s, and partnered with his son, Henry A. Vinton, in 1865.

In the meantime, Maurice J. Power was establishing himself as a sculptor.  Born in Rosscarbery, Cork, Ireland around 1836, he was brought to New York City at the age of three.  Powers wanted to create monumental sculptures--the heroic statues and monuments that adorned parks and cemeteries.

from History of the Tammany Society from its Organization to the Present Time, 1901 (copyright expired)

In 1868, Power established the National Fine Art Foundry and moved into the East 25th Street property.  (Presumably, the designing and molding were done in the main building and the foundry in the rear.)  By 1870, sculptor William Rudolf O'Donovan was employed here.  Born in 1844, he had apprenticed as a marble cutter in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania.  He saw fighting in the Civil War, including the Battle of Gettysburg.  Among their many works, Power and O'Donovan would design and execute several Civil War monuments.

William R. O'Donovan in the East 25th Street studio.  McClure's Magazine, October 1895 (copyright expired)

In April 1870, The Technologist said, "Mr. Maurice J. Power is an enthusiastic artist and, above all, an American artist and truly national work may be expected from his hands."   At the National Fine Art Foundry, said the article, "the noble art of bronze sculpture is conducted, which may be observed in all its stages, from the modeler's atelier to the foundry."

The Brooklyn Citizen Almac, 1893 (copyright expired)

At the time of the article, Power was completing the soldier's monument to be erected at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.  A statue not designed by the National Fine Arts artists, but cast here, was Byron M. Pickett's statue of Samuel F. B. Morse, installed in Central Park in 1871.  On June 17 that year, The Telegrapher commented, "The bronze statue was cast at the National Fine Art Foundry of Mr. M. J. Power, on East Twenty-fifth street...The casting was worthy of the model, and creditable to all concerned."

A 19th century stereoscope slide highlights the metalwork--the statues, plaques and decorations--of the Civil War Soldiers' Monument in Greenwood Cemetery created at the National Fine Art Foundry.

On July 29, 1893, Architecture and Building noted that the National Fine Arts Foundry had "erected about thirty public monuments in the United States" and were located "in nearly every State of the Union east of the Mississippi River."  The article said, "It contracts for the complete erection of monuments, including the granite work, and in association with sculptors of reputation it undertakes the execution of such memorials."  

Workers in the foundry portion.  The caption in McClure's Magazine in October 1895 read "Making a mould for the bronze casting...Most of the workmen are French."  (copyright expired)

Among the monuments the firm had executed at the time were the Battlefield of Monmouth Monument at Freehold, New Jersey; the Oriskany Battlefield Monument near Utica, New York; the Soldiers' and Sailors' Fountain in Manchester, New Hampshire; and the Tower of Victory at Washington's Headquarters in Newburg, New York.

In 1895, Power handed the reins to William R. O'Donovan in the commission to design life-size bas relief statues of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.  The panels would be incorporated into the Brooklyn Memorial Arch.  In its October issue that year, McClure's Magazine said, "In the south side of East Twenty-fifth Street in New York City, just out of the roar of Third Avenue, stands a dingy brick building, on whose front big black letters announce "Fine Art Foundry."  The article said, "A queer place, one would think, to find Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln; yet here they are, or were during the summer months, eying the visitor with stern salutation from the backs of their bronze horses."

Maurice J. Power died in September 1902.  In addition to his artistic work, he had been highly involved with Tammany politics, serving as a Police Court Justice from 1880 to 1890; Shipping Commissioner for the Port of New York starting in 1893; and Aqueduct Commissioner in 1897.  His wife, Mary F. Power, sold the East 25th Street property to F. Morris & Co. in January 1906.

In May 1909, Rochette & Parzini purchased the building.  Founded by sculptors Michael Parzini and Eugene Rochette in 1904, the firm continued the tradition started with Maurice J. Power.  Parzini was born in Turin Italy and studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

A year after moving in, the studio was the scene of a mystery.  On the morning of September 23, 1910, a sculptor, Emil Gautier, was found dead on the floor.  Initially, his death was attributed to heart failure and "fellow-workmen, who found Gautier lying dead, said he suffered from attacks of syncope [fainting]," said The New York Times.  But the coroner, Dr. O'Hanlon, "found the case not so simple as it had seemed."  Gautier's head was badly burned, the hair "burned to the scalp, the top lobe of the ear was seared, and the skin of the jaw and cheek badly burned," said The Times.  In addition, his face was "badly scratched."  Frustratingly, newspapers did not follow-up with the results of O'Hanlon's autopsy.

Upon the death of Michael Parzini in December 1946, The New York Times remarked, "The firm did much work for the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White...Its work can be seen on the present Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Hotels Pierre and Biltmore and the Hotel Roney Plaza in Miami."  The article noted that Rochette & Parzini sculpted decorations of buildings at the New York World's Fair in 1939-40, "the New York Stock Exchange, the Yale, Columbia, Lehigh and Fordham University buildings and other structures."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The founders' deaths did not signal the end of Rochette & Parzini.  On August 26, 1964, The New York Times reported on sculptor Mario G. Tommasi's work high atop the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  The article said his hammer and chisel were working on "a block of stone that has been waiting since 1924...The cast was made from a clay model in the extensive workshop of Rochette & Parzini, Inc., 218 East 25th Street, a concern that has completed numerous projects here and throughout the country," said the article.

Six years later, Rochette & Parzini received the commission to execute the 11-1/2-foot-tall bronze statue of Leif Ericson for Leif Ericson Park in Brooklyn.  Sculptor Arnold Bergier designed the monument, which was dedicated on May 23, 1971.  At the time, the building's first and second floors were designated as a "sculptor's studio" by the Department of Buildings, and the upper floors as "storage."

In 1977, photographer Clara Aich purchased the property.  Amazingly, Rochette & Parzini artifacts were still in place.  She converted the building to a residence, and used the sculptural pieces as decoration.  In 1979 she opened the Casa Clara Theater in part of the building.

photographs by the author