The Lost Josiah H. Burton Mansion - 390 Fifth Avenue

By the turn of the last century, the former basement level had been converted to shops.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Josiah Howes Burton was born in St. Albans, Vermont on December 27, 1824.  He married Lucia Maria Clark in 1852 in St. Albans, and relocated to New York City shortly afterward.  Around 1858, the family moved into the newly built mansion at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 36th Street.

The northward migration of wealthy homeowners was just now reaching this far north along Fifth Avenue.  It would not be until the following year, for instance, that the sumptuous John Jacob Astor III mansion would rise on the northwest corner of 33rd Street.  The Burtons' residence would equal or surpass any of the rising mansions.

Faced in brownstone, it was five stories tall above an American basement.  (The American basement plan placed the entrance nearly at street level.)  Designed in the Second Empire style, its fifth floor took the form of a slate-shingled, Parisian style mansard crowned with lacy ironwork.  The offset arched entrance within the rusticated base sat above a short stoop.  The windows on the Fifth Avenue elevation were arranged in threes and set in graceful frames.  Quoins separated the Fifth Avenue bays.

When they moved into their new home, the Burtons had two sons, Clark Candee, born in 1853, and Frank Vincent, born two years later.  Two more sons would later arrive--Robert Lewis in 1860 and John Howes in 1868.

The Burtons' residency was short lived.  The family left 390 Fifth Avenue in 1860 and shortly afterward moved to a 51-acre estate in Newburgh, New York.  

The mansion became home to merchant Thomas George Walker and his family.  Born in 1832, Walker and Lucy Bowman Holbrook were newlyweds, married on October 1, 1860.  Walker's first American ancestor, Thomas Walker, arrived in New York City in 1790, just after the end of the Revolution.  Lucy's American roots were deeper.  Her earliest ancestor was Nathaniel Bowman, who arrived in Massachusetts around 1630.

The Walkers did not leave on a wedding trip, but immediately moved into 390 Fifth Avenue.  That most likely had to do with  the health of Lucy's mother.  Although Lucy's parents, Henry M. and Louisa W. Holbrook, lived in Brooklyn, they were staying with the couple in the Fifth Avenue house.  Louisa died there 12 days after the wedding, on October 13, 1860.  Her funeral was held in the mansion on October 15.

A more joyful event took place in the house the following year when Holbrook Walker was born. 

The mansion was threatened later that year.  On November 24, 1861, The New York Times headlined an article, "Fire In Fifth-Avenue."  The article explained, "A fire was discovered yesterday morning in the residence of Thomas G. Walker, No. 390 Fifth-avenue."  The blaze had started in "an ash-barrel under the back stoop," said the article.  Firefighters extinguished it before significant damage was done.

Sadly, Holbrook Walker died in March 1862, not yet one year old.  Three more children would be born in the mansion: Arthur Lucian, born in 1863; Marion in 1866; and Louis Bowman in 1869.

Lucy Bowman Holbrook Walker died in 1871.  Thomas sold the mansion that year to William P. Seymour.  (Interestingly, on April 2, 1873, Thomas Walker married Lucy's cousin, Louise Jones Bowman.  They would have one daughter, Lucy.)

The Finance and Commerce of New York, 1909 (copyright expired)

William P. Seymour had started his real estate business in 1859.  He specialized in "the most expensive class of property in the City of New York," according to The Finance and Commerce of New York.  

Also living in the mansion was Seymour's unmarried sister.  She sometimes traveled to Europe with their sister, the wife of William K. Merritt.  They did so in 1872, and on March 20, 1873, they were among the 950 passengers who boarded the White Star Line steamer Atlantic in Liverpool, heading home.  The women were among the 50 cabin passengers, the other 900 were in steerage.  The steamship was wrecked off the coast of Nova Scotia on April 1.  Both of William Seymour's sisters were lost in the sinking.

Later that year, Seymour sold 390 Fifth Avenue to William H. Barmore.  Although the neighborhood was still exclusively residential (it would be another 17 years before William Waldorf Astor broke ground for the Waldorf Hotel on the site of the house his father had erected), Barmore converted the mansion to a hotel--the Barmore House.  

Barmore was the son of William Barmore, who had been president of the Knickerbocker Ice Company.  Upon his death, the younger Barmore "inherited considerable property," according to The New York Times.  Prior to opening Barmore House, he had operated a confectionary business and now continued to run a shop in the former mansion. 

Close inspection reveals that Barmore kept the original entrance intact, while installing his confectionary store on the corner.   Trow's New York City Directory, 1879 (copyright expired)

The Barmore House was operated on the European Plan, which meant that meals were not included in the cost of the suites.  A residential hotel, its occupants signed leases.  They could take their meals in the Barmore Restaurant on site, if they liked.  An advertisement read:

Barmore's, 390 Fifth Avenue, southwest corner 36th street.  Elevator and all modern improvements.  Rooms en suite and single, specially arranged for permanent families.

William Barmore's venture came, perhaps, before its time.  He faced financial problems in January 1881, selling the property to John Jacob Astor III for $212,000 (about $6.7 million in 2025).  Barmore continued the hotel, leasing the building from Astor.

It was common for businesses to pay (some might say "bribe") newspapers to print glowing reviews, most often written by themselves.  That was assuredly the case when, on November 13, 1881, The New York Times wrote, "Peculiar circumstances enable the Barmore, No. 390 Fifth-avenue, to furnish a better table d'hôte for $1.25 (with wine) than has ever before been afforded in New-York."

Barmore's marketing was not enough to keep his business afloat.  On January 20, 1882, his creditors held a meeting in the hotel.  The New York Times said his statement showed, "liabilities $15,000 and merely nominal assets."

Astor altered the ground floor to shops and leased space to high end retailers.  In 1888, Rophine Rouis opened his lamp shop in the building.  Described by History and Commerce of New York as "the only manufacturer in this country of lamp shades in floral designs in silk and satin," Rouis also imported, "lamp shades, candle shades, candles, artistic vase lamps and oil chandeliers."  The article said that by moving into its 25 x 75 foot salesroom here, he could sell his "enormous and splendid stock of goods" directly to the public, rather than through dealers.

By the early 1890s, Keller & Co., art dealers and "dealers in German and Italian World's Fair exhibits," according to The Evening World, occupied space here.  The firm was operated by Moritz and Anna Keller.  In 1893, they fired Martin Cuney.  Moritz Keller said later that "a threat had been made that trouble would be made unless Cuney was reinstated." 

Shortly afterward, a shipment arrived for Keller & Co. that included a $1,100 jewel casket.  Although the item was being held in bond and officially in the possession of Customs officials, the Kellers were permitted to exhibit it along with other items from the recently closed Chicago Exposition.  They were on display in The Grand Central Palace, the city's new exhibition hall on Lexington Avenue and 44th Street.

On January 18, 1894, Anna Keller and her former employee, Martin Cuney, were arrested and charged "with a violation of the custom laws in disposing of dutiable goods in bond."  The Evening World reported, "Mrs. Keller is a handsome woman of the Oriental type of beauty.  The fact that she had spent the night in Ludlow Street Jail did not appear to affect her personal appearance to the least."

Customs officials had discovered that the expensive imported casket was gone, and in its place was a $29 substitute purchased from Bloomingdale Brothers.  It appears that Cuney had carried out his threat to make trouble.  He told the court, "he had carried the casket to the Hotel Savoy and delivered it to a Mr. Boehm, under instructions from Mrs. Keller.  He did not know he was doing wrong," recounted the newspaper.  Happily for Anna Keller, the case was dropped by Government officials on February 1.

Another art dealer in the building was Max Williams Co., founded in 1893, which handled "rare engravings and etchings."  Williams was also a publisher and produced reproductions of artworks.  The firm had a branch in London and Paris, as well.  On February 27, 1896, The Independent reported, "at the Max Williams Gallery, 390 Fifth Avenue, [are exhibited] seventy-seven of his etchings and dry points, which are beautiful work.  They range in price, generally speaking, from five to fifteen dollars."

The linen store of William S. Kinsey & Co. occupied space by 1899.  The firm handled embroidered napkins, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, and the like.

The Outlook, December 9, 1898 (copyright expired)

William S. Kinsey & Co. was still operating from 390 Fifth Avenue when the Gorham Manufacturing Company purchased the property in 1904.  They hired McKim, Mead & White to design an office and showroom building on the site.  Designed by Stanford White, the replacement building was completed in 1906.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Edward M. Fetherstone House - 157 East 80th Street

 

The family who occupied the house at 157 East 80th Street in 1873 made it clear in their advertisement in the New-York Daily Tribune that they were not running a boarding house.  "157 East 80th-St.., between Lexington and 3d Aves.--Well-furnished ROOMS, suitable for single gentlemen or gentlemen and their wives, with or without breakfast; family private; references."  Taking in a boarder or roomer was common, even among affluent families.  This ad spelled out that the prospective renters would be finding their main meals elsewhere.

The family's residence was one of a newly-built row of identical, three-story and basement homes.  Sixteen-feet-wide, their neo-Grec design was on the cutting edge of domestic taste.  The unusual entrance exhibited expected elements of the design--grooved pilasters that simulated fluting and incised lintel carving.  The brackets that upheld the molded cornice, however, were striking.  Three tiers of carved leaves, like breaking waves, made the decoration stand apart from the commonplace.  The upper windows sat within architrave frames and wore crisp molded cornices.  Faceted bosses sat between the brackets of the terminal cornice.

The house was rented furnished in the fall of 1885.  The ad on October 2, read: "The handsome three story brown stone house No. 157 East 80th st.; heavy cabinet trimmed; well furnished; rent low to a good tenant."  Four years later, in August 1889, the owner considered selling.  "For sale or to let--157 East 80th St.  A beautiful three story brown stone House, newly decorated; will be let with carpets, shades and many articles of furniture."

Frances L. Boynton purchased the house and leased it to G. H. Chappel.  Like their neighbors, the Chappels maintained a small staff.  The family's financial status--comfortable but not wealthy--was reflected in an advertisement in the New York Herald on January 9, 1891.  "Wanted--A chambermaid and waitress who can also sew."  In a more affluent household, three servants would have filled those positions.

In May 1894, Frances Boyton sold 157 East 80th Street to Albert Freund.  The Freunds advertised for a maid in November 1898.  "Housework--Wanted neat girl, about 16, for light upstairs work."

Like their predecessors, the Freunds' residency was not especially long.  They sold the house to Edward M. Fetherstone in 1901 and, finally, the residence had a long-term occupant.

The Fetherstones maintained a 13-acre country home in Farmingdale, Long Island.  The house had an "all around porch" and seven rooms.  The estate operated as a working farm, and, according to a description in 1921, had an orchard, cultivated land, and "new barn and chicken house."

Two decades after purchasing 157 East 80th Street, it appears the Fetherstones left New York.  The family's groom was looking for a new position in May 1921, noting he was "single, 35" and "good rider."  The Fetherstones advertised their Long Island property for sale that year and disappeared from the Manhattan directories.

By 1927, the basement level had been converted for business purposes, home to Charles Welsh's catering company.  It remained through 1931, after which the space was remodeled as the George Washington Club, an Irish-American social group.  

Painters were working on the stoop railings when this 1941 photograph was snapped.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Following the death of 84-year-old John Higgins, the father of club member Michael J. Higgins, in 1932, a meeting was held here.  On October 29, The Advocate reported on the "special meeting of the George Washington Club, New York Clan-na-Gael" on October 7.  In florid terms, the club resolved to send "heartfelt sympathies" to the family, explaining "This irreparable loss has brought much suffering and anguish to Brother Higgins, who has been a staunch, consistent and inspiring member of this club for several years, and has never faltered in his fealty in Ireland and America."

Two decades later, in January 1951, Sebastian Vonderbank purchased the house and converted the upper floors to two residences and installed a commercial space in the basement.  A subsequent renovation in 1959 by Dr. Harrison P. Eddy returned the upper floors to a single-family home with the doctor's office in the basement.   

In 1993, Dr. Lawrence Bryskin and his family moved in.  Like Eddy, he operated his practice from the basement office.  Amazingly intact, the former Fetherstone house remains a single-family home with a "home occupant" office in the basement level.

photograph by the author

"The Carolina" - 45 St. Mark's Place

 

Born in Newtown, New York on April 10, 1777, Samuel Barker Harper married Christiana Arcularius in 1799.  The couple had five children--Amanda, Andrew, James Phillip, Selina Elizabeth and Margaret Matilda.  Samuel Harper was a merchant and an alderman.

Samuel Baker Harper, from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Starting in 1831, Thomas E. Davis erected handsome Federal-style brick residences on East 8th Street between Second and Third Avenues.  He lobbied the city to rename the block St. Mark's Place.  Renaming a short section of streets was a relatively common practice and indicated an elevated status.

Similar residences followed suite and in 1842 Harper moved his family into the newly built house at 45 St. Mark's Place.  Unlike Davis's, it was in the currently popular Greek Revival style.  Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone, it was three bays wide and three stories tall above an English basement.  The double-doored entrance was framed with substantial brownstone pilasters that upheld a heavy entablature.

The population of the house increased as the Harper children married.  Margaret Matilda was 25 years old when she married Oliver Smith Fleet on August 24, 1843.  The newlyweds moved into her family's new home.  Fleet was the head of Oliver S. Fleet & Co., a drygoods firm.

Selina Elizabeth and her husband, Andrew Dimmock, were married around 1851 and they, too, lived with the family.  Dimmock, too, was a drygoods merchant.

James Phillip Harper, who was born in 1814, was working in his father's business by 1845.  On June 23, 1853, he married Margaret Perego.  He brought his bride back to the St. Mark's Place house where their son, James, Jr. was born on September 29, 1861.

And, finally, Amanda married William H. Sackett and they, too, lived in what must have been increasingly tight conditions.

Christina Arcularius Harper, from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

In the summer of 1858, the extended family traveled to Europe.  On Saturday afternoon September 11, Police Officer Stone noticed "two young fellows hurrying away from the residence of Mr. Wm. H. Sackett, No. 45 St. Mark's-place," as reported by The New York Times.  (Why the newspaper identified the residence as Sackett's rather than that of his father-in-law is puzzling.)  Knowing that the Harpers were abroad, Stone took chase.  "Being pretty nimble on foot he over took one of them," said the article, "and took his prisoner and his bundle to the Station-house."  In the meantime, the other youthful burglar was captured by another officer.  

"The booty consisted of about $280 worth of silk dresses," reported The Times.  (The value of the high-end gowns would translate to around $11,000 in 2025.)  The thieves, 16-year-old Robert Muret and 18-year-old James McCabe confessed to other burglaries in the neighborhood.

On July 18, 1860, Christina Harper died at the age of 84.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.  Samuel survived her by two years, dying at the age of 86 in the St. Mark's Place house on July 29, 1862.

The following year, the Harper heirs sold the house to Samuel M. Lederer and his wife, Alice.  Lederer was the senior partner in the drygoods firm Samuel M. Lederer & Brother.

At the end of the Civil War, the formerly aristocratic neighborhood was flooded with immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe.  The mansions of St. Mark's Place were quickly being razed for tenements or converted to rooming houses and shops.  In 1872, Samuel and Alice Lederer moved far uptown to 106 East 58th Street.  

They renovated 45 St. Mark's Place to a tenement, adding a fourth floor and remodeling the facade with trendy neo-Grec details--a fashionable new stoop and areaway ironwork, an impressive new entrance frame, and neo-Grec-style lintels.  A complex cast metal cornice was surmounted by a parapet that announced the building's new name: Carolina.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Unlike rooming houses, the Carolina's apartments had what today would be called kitchenettes.  An advertisement in The Sun on June 13, 1874 pointed out they came "with light housekeeping accommodations," indicating that basic cooking was possible.  An advertisement on December 2, 1876 listed the rents at "$4.50, $5, and $6 per week."  The most expensive would translate to $180 today.

Although technically a tenement, the Carolina's residents were professional.  In 1880, they included Frederick W. Kamm and William Balck, both clerks; William Formes, who listed his profession as "manager;" and Henry A. Wells, a real estate agent.

By 1899, Morris Weiss and Henrietta Krauss owned the property (their relationship is unclear).  Both lived in the building among their tenants.  While living here, Henrietta taught in the primary department of Public School 13 at least through 1905.

On October 5, 1900, Morris Weiss joined 25 other owners on the block to petition for electric street lights--a notably modern innovation.  They complained that the few gas street lamps on the block were often unlighted and even those that were lit "do not properly answer the purpose for which they are intended."  The petition pointed out "the numerous burglaries or attempted burglaries in this street." 

On March 28, 1907, Morris Weiss and Henrietta Krauss leased the "parlor flat," as described by the Record & Guide, to dentist Frederick J. Marshall.  He converted the apartment to his home and office.

Living here the following year was Malvina Lobel.  She read an interview with Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham in the North American Review in which he deemed "that fifty per cent of the criminals in New York City are recruited from the ranks of the Jewish race."  She was infuriated.  On September 3, 1908, The Evening World reported, "A mass meeting of indignation and protest against the published statistics and statements of the Commissioner is to be held tomorrow night at the home of Mme. Malvina Lobel, at No. 45 St. Mark's place."  The article said, "Mme. Lobel is herself an enthusiast of all matters relating to her race, and is very bitter against the Police Commissioner."

Another tenant involved in Jewish affairs was Dr. Julius Broder, who lived here in 1910.  In April that year, he joined Charles Roser and Herman Gordon in establishing the Jewish Uplift Society.  The New-York Tribune reported, "The object of the new organization is to suppress and prevent 'white slavery'" and to provide a shelter for women "who wish to reform and [it] will provide employment for them."

Although the parapet was removed, the elaborate cast metal cornice survives.

The building was sold in 1958.  An alteration was completed in 1978 and it was most likely during that renovation that the parapet was removed and the neo-Grec lintels shaved off.  For whatever reason, the handsome entrance was preserved.  The building holds four apartments today.

photographs by the author

The 1903 Pinaud Building - 84-90 Fifth Avenue

 

image via markplace.vts.com

In its "Building Intelligence" column on May 3, 1902, Architect and Architecture reported that developer Henry Corn would be erecting an 11-story office building on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street.  Half a century earlier, the site sat on one of the most socially important intersections within the then-exclusive residential district.  The mansions on each corner--like the opulent Greek Revival-style mansion of William H. Halstead here--looked onto two of Manhattan's most fashionable thoroughfares.  Now, those wealthy homeowners had all fled northward as commercial buildings overtook lower Fifth Avenue.

Architect and Architecture noted that Robert Maynicke of Maynicke & Franke would design the structure.  The identical two facades gave his Renaissance Revival-style structure  perfect symmetry.  Stores lined the rusticated, two-story base.  The six-story mid-section, sandwiched between intermediate cornices, was essentially unadorned.  In stark contrast, Maynicke lavished the top section with double-height, elliptical arches that engulfed stacked trios of windows and gave Renaissance pediments to those in the center.  A dentiled and bracketed cornice crowned the design.

The Brickbuilder, August 1914 (copyright expired)

Construction of the building progressed with lightning speed.  Only three months after Architect and Architecture revealed Corn's plans, Blum & Koch announced in the August 1902 issue of The American Hatter, "Do not fail to note the coming change of address which will give our hats a Fifth Avenue label.  By the middle of December we hope to welcome customers to our new and more spacious quarters at 84-90 Fifth Avenue."

Blum & Koch was not the only firm who had already signed leases.  Ed. Pinaud would be the building's major tenant and had negotiated space with Corn even before the plans were completed.  Founded in France by Édouard Pinaud in 1830, the fragrance and cosmetics company was a favorite among the carriage trade (Ed. Pinaurd had supplied Queen Victoria with her toiletries).  On March 6, 1903, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on the "New Ed. Pinaud Building," saying in part, 

Ed. Pinaud perfumery has erected a skyscraper that contains all the latest devices in construction and equipment.  To celebrate the opening yesterday Victor Klotz, the proprietor, tendered a reception during the afternoon to his friends and customers.

Victor Klotz had traveled from Paris to attend the ceremony.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted, "The offices, all newly fitted up and finely decorated, were adorned with French and American colors and floral pieces.  A collation was served, during which corks popped merrily."

This advertisement gives the firm's address as simply "Ed. Pinaud Building."  The Argosy, October 1904 (copyright expired)

Other early tenants included apparel makers like Fein Brothers & Sturmann, a cloak manufacturer that leased 10,000 square feet of space in July 1904; clothing maker S. N. Wood & Co.; and J. C. Stratton & Co., makers of women's cloaks and suits.

The sale price of the advertised suit would translate to about $350 in 2025.  The Evening World, April 17, 1908 (copyright expired)

As the Pinaud Building rose, so did the 12-story Parker Building at Fourth Avenue (later Park Avenue South) and 19th Street.  On January 10, 1908 a fire broke out on its sixth floor.  Firefighters were faced with a modern problem--fighting fires in high-rise buildings.  Their efforts were fruitless and the Parker Building was gutted.

Exactly one week later, on January 17, The Sun reported, "The Fire Department last night attended to the first high building fire since the Parker Building burned and Chief Croker turned out to see that it didn't get away."  The fire had started in the seventh-floor loft of J. C. Stratton & Co.

The Pinaud Building was built with firefighting apparatus--standpipes on each floor that precluded the necessity of hauling firehoses up staircases.  "The fire was at such a height that the firemen decided to use the standpipes in the building," said the article.  Frustratingly, when they arrived on the seventh floor, they discovered that "some one had cut off the nozzles of the hoses, probably for the metal in them."  With the standpipes useless without functioning hoses, the firefighters had to use the pump engines on the street.  The blaze was extinguished, despite the problems.  The Sun reported, "About $4,000 damage was done."  (The figure would translate to about $140,000 today.)

By the following year, Frank & Beeman occupied space here.  The firm manufactured the popular shirtwaists--a ubiquitous women's blouse similar to a man's shirt.  The company's female workforce walked out during a strike in December that year.

Socialite Ines Milholland was an activist in women's rights (she was affiliated with Emmeline Parkhurst in the suffragist movement) and workplace conditions.  A graduate of Vassar, she allied with the young working women who struck Frank & Beeman.  On December 16, 1909, The Sun reported, "Since the shirtwaist makers have been on strike Miss Milholland has become much interested in their cause and frequently establishes herself as a volunteer picket outside factories to make sure that the police make no arrests that are not justified."

Ines Milholland was on the picket line outside 84-90 Fifth Avenue on December 15.  The policemen, who were well aware of her political power, stood by to ensure things remained calm.  The Sun reported, "While she was there the policemen made no arrests."  But when she stepped around the corner for a few minutes, things changed.  She returned to discover that sisters Tillie and Lotta Gold, and Sarah Rabinowitz "were in the grasp of two policemen."  Ines followed them to the station house where Policeman O'Connor at the door said, "You might as well come in too.  You're under arrest as much as these girls."

Ines Milholland was soon released, but the factory girls were sent to night court.  The Sun reported that Ines, "had intended to go to the opera last night, she said, but she spent the entire evening at the night court waiting for the cases of the three strikers to be called."  In telling the magistrate of the officers' actions, she said, "It was downright cowardly, that's what it was."  The magistrate was sympathetic and discharged two of the women and fined Lotta Gold $5.

Viola White worked for Frank & Beeman as a "shirtwaist model" in 1913.  On the afternoon of August 30 that year, she left work and entered the elevator.  Apparently forgetting something, she tried to step out.  The New York Times reported that she "was crushed to death...between the elevator and the floor on which she worked."  John Gubo, the elevator operator, was arrested for homicide.

Millionaire Joseph C. Brownstone was head of J. C. Brownstone & Co., a chain of clothing stores which operated here as early as 1919, and a director in the Bank of the United States.  On the afternoon of July 3 that year, IRS agents entered his office and arrested him.  The following day, The New York Times ran the headline, "Rich Man Arrested In Tax Fraud Case."

A friend of Brownstone, Jay A. Weber, secretary of the Pictorial Review Company, was being held "in a plan to defraud the Government out of approximately $500,000 in taxes due from the Pictorial Review Company," according to The New York Times, and for attempting to bribe an IRS agent by offering him $25,000.  Now Brownstone tried to get his friend out of trouble by offering the same agent the same amount.  Assistant United States District Attorney Benjamin De Witt said he was, "greatly puzzled that [Brownstone] should approach the same man in the same case with an offer of the same amount."

Weber had attempted his bribe inside the Hotel McAlpin in view of several witnesses.  Brownstone thought he could avoid such a trap by catching up to the agent on the street.  It did not work.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Ed. Pinaud, Inc. remained in the building at least through 1926.  The other tenants continued to be mostly garment manufacturers, like G. Solomon, makers of cloaks and suits, and the Dependable Clothing Company.  In 1929, S. Golde & Sons leased three floors in the building.  They made coats for the U.S. Army.

Joseph Brownstone was in trouble again in 1931.  Like many banks in the early years of the Depression, the Bank of the United States failed.  Just before its closing, Brownstone issued a $275,000 loan to J. C. Brownstone & Co.  Because it would not be due until after the bank was insolvent, his firm would not be obligated to pay back the funds.  On January 1, 1931, The New York Times reported, "He said that he had a perfect legal right to borrow money from the bank of which he was a director."

A tragedy occurred in the offices of the I. Buss Uniform Company here on December 30, 1947.  When employees arrived that morning, they found 40-year-old Harold Busch dead on a cot in his office.  The New York Times reported that there was "a newspaper over his face and gas escaping from a tube near his mouth."  Busch had left three notes on his desk, "one giving burial instructions."

After mid-century, the first non-manufacturing tenants began moving into the building.  In May 1960, The Rabbinical Council of America, the offices of which were already here, opened Beth Din (court of religious law) in the building.  The Council described its purpose in The New York Times as "giving guidance in the field of marriage and family status to all Jews who require it."

The transition from manufacturing to office space continued when consulting engineer James Ruderman leased 5,000 square feet in September 1961.  At the same time, BenGor Industries, Inc., an investment firm, occupied space here.

A renovation completed in 1970 resulted in a bank and store on the ground floor, a union health center on the second, and offices and showrooms throughout the upper floors.  Among the new tenants were the offices of the American Civil Liberties Union, the computerized testing center of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York (HIP), and the offices of The Irish World, the oldest Irish-American weekly newspaper in America.

Other tenants starting in the 1970s included the Council on Municipal Performance, the Citizens for Abortion Rights, and NOW/NY (the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women).  They were joined in the building in the 1980s by the Teachers' and Writers' Collaborative and the Research Institute of America.   After the devastation of downtown Manhattan on September 11, 2001, the Housing Authority, which had occupied 90 Church Street, moved into 100,000 square feet of 84-90 Fifth Avenue.

Twelve years later, however, the former Pinaud Building was vacant.  Its owner, RFR Holding, described it in The New York Times on March 25, 2014 as "largely a blank canvas."

image via squarefoot.com

Robert Maynicke's design is intact, even at the ground floor, always the first level to be obliterated by modernization.

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post

The 1837 Rev. A. S. Francis House - 69 Bedford Street

 

The block of Bedford Street between Commerce and Morton Streets was a flurry of construction activity in 1836.  Prim, two-and-a-half story homes were rising along both sides.  Among them was a row of six houses constructed by John C. Hadden, a builder, and Sylvanus Gedney, a carpenter.  They formed the construction firm Hadden & Gedney.  The row was completed in 1837.  It appears that Hadden owned 69 Bedford Street, since he paid the taxes on the property.  Faced in Flemish bond brick, it featured a handsome entrance with narrow sidelights and a transom.

The house became home to Rev. A. S. Francis, pastor of the Bedford Street Methodist Episcopal Church which was almost directly across the street.  An interesting tradition at the time was the "pastor's visit," which, unlike the name suggests, had nothing to do with the minister visiting the homes of his congregants, but of their descending upon his house.  It was a sort of welcoming custom.  On January 27, 1838, an announcement appeared in the Morning Herald reading, "A Pastor's Visit--Will be given to the Rev. A. S. Francis. 69 Bedford street, on Monday afternoon and evening, the 29th of January.  You and friends are invited."

Among the participants was the renowned actor Edwin Forrest.  He told the Morning Herald,

On Monday evening I attended, according to a friendly invitation, the social and religious soirée given to the Rev. A. S. Francis, of 69 Bedford street, by his very excellent and respectable congregation, composed of a large number of worthy citizens, with their good wives, and pretty, smiling, charming daughters.  It was a perfect novelty.

Rev. Francis's residency would be short.  In 1840 Rev. Phineas Rice and his family occupied 69 Bedford Street.  He and his wife, the former Mary Howe, had six children, ranging in age from Thomas H., who was 22 years old in 1840, to Ephraim, who was 12.

Rev. Phineas Rice.  (original source unknown)

The Rices, too, would occupy the house for only a few years.  By 1845, 69 Bedford Street was home to Rev. I. C. Cheney.

Cheney was followed by the family of James Wright by 1851.  Born in 1798, Wright was a letter carrier.  He and his wife, Mary S., had at least two children, Maria J. and Gilbert.

It was common for families to take in boarders.  Although the house may have been snug for the four family members, the Wrights shared their home with Thomas W. and Mary F. Chadwick by 1853.  Chadwick had a china store at 232 Bleecker Street.  The couple had a toddler, James Howard.

Late in the winter of 1854, James Howard Chadwick contracted what The New York Times described as a "disease of the throat."  He died at the age of three years and seven months on March 7.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

In 1855, Marie J. Wright was teaching in the Primary Department of School No. 45 on 24th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.  Her brother was now a clerk and also volunteered with the Amity Hose Company, No. 38.

More than a century before air conditioning would become common, wealthy families escaped the city each summer to fashionable resorts or country estates.  Middle- and working-class families, on the other hand, suffered through the sweltering heat.  Each day newspapers listed the victims of heatstroke.

On July 19, 1866, the New York Herald titled an article "The Hot Weather," and reported on the ongoing heat wave's effects on the "already prostrate Gothamites."  The previous day, horses and citizens had fallen in the streets.  On the list of casualties, the article noted, "Mary Boyle, servant at No. 69 Bedford street...died suddenly of heat."

James Wright died at the age of 69 on December 29, 1866.  His funeral was held in the house on January 2, 1867.  Mary S. Wright remained here into the early 1880s.

Thorne W. and Anna Williams purchased 69 Bedford Street in April 1894.  The following year, in July, they hired architect John Guilfoyle to renovate the house.  It was most likely at this time that the attic was raised to a full floor and a neo-Grec cornice installed.

Anna Williams died in July 1908.  It is unclear how long Thorne remained here, but in 1926 owner John Falatino hired architect Robert A. Fash to convert the house to "non-housekeeping" apartments, meaning they had no kitchens.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to the basement level.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Occupying one of the apartments as early as 1934 was 22-year-old sculptor Edward Mansky.  

Early on the morning of December 2, 1937, three men fired shots at Owen McLaughlin, a stevedore at Pier 36 on the Hudson River.  In a similar attack earlier, Joseph Kirby, John Johnson, and Arthur Meehan had sought work at the pier on Vandam street.  When told there was no work, they "drew a revolver and fired two shots which lodged in the wall of the office," as reported by The New York Sun.  

The newspaper said, "Later that day a milkman found three .22-caliber revolvers in the hall of 69 Bedford street while making a delivery."  Forensic tests showed that the bullets recovered from the wall had come from one of the weapons.  Detectives arrested the three men whom they alleged "had discarded the weapons in the Bedford street tenement."

Victor Bockris interviewed writer and artist William Seward Burroughs II extensively for his book With William Burroughs, A Report From The Bunker.  Regarding his time here in 1943, Burroughs said,

I lived five months at 69 Bedford Street.  That was when David Kammerer lived around the corner at 35 Morton Street.  Sixty-nine Bedford Street was on the second floor; it was a furnished apartment; it had a couch and a few chairs and a table; it had a closet; kitchen, and bathroom.  Very mediocre.  I lived there by myself.  That was when I was working as a bartender and later as a private detective.  I didn't do very much.  I was working most of the time.  I had two jobs.  I spent a great amount of time at home in the pad.

That year Burroughs became friends with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and David Kammerer, whom he mentioned in the interview.  Bill Morgan, in his I Celebrate Myself, The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg, writes, "The quartet of Allen, William, Lucien [Carr], and David spent hours hanging out together around the local bars like Chumley's...Their lively conversations ran the gamut from philosophy and art to drugs and sex."  

On August 17, 1944, The New York Times reported that Burroughs and Jack Kerouac had been arrested as material witnesses in the murder of David Kammerer.  He had been fatally stabbed by Lucien Carr, in Riverside Park. 

In 1950, the house was converted to apartments, two each on the first and second floors and one on the third.  A subsequent renovation completed in 2009 returned 69 Bedford Street to a single family home.  The stoop was restored and a period-appropriate entranceway fabricated.

photograph by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

George F. Pelham's 1899 300 West 107th Street

 

Real estate developer George Klingman hired George F. Pelham to design a "stores and flat" building on the southwest corner of West End Avenue and 107th Street in the spring of 1898.  Pelham's plans, filed in July, projected the construction costs at $70,000, or about $2.73 million in 2025 terms.  Completed in 1899, the seven-story structure was designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  

The basement and first floor were clad in limestone.  Possibly because of the noticeable incline of 107th Street, Pelham placed the stores in the less visually obtrusive basement level.  The entrance atop a short stoop sat within a handsome portico of paired Ionic columns upholding an entablature of intricate Italian Renaissance-style carvings.  The upper floors were clad in deep red brick.  Pelham rounded the northern corners and gave the second and seventh floors decorative terra cotta bands.  Elaborate terra cotta bandcourses defined the four-story mid-section.  

image via Landmark West!

The entertainments held by the building's well-do-to tenants appeared in the society columns.  Such was the case on December 6, 1903, when The New York Times reported on Mrs. Meyer Heineman's large musicale "in honor of Mrs. Charles Fleischman, mother of Mayor Fleischman of Cincinnati, and Mrs. Louis Meyer of Cincinnati."  Eight artists performed that afternoon.

Among the several physicians who lived here in 1909 was Dr. Harry McDonald Peggs and his bride, Helen Crosby.  Peggs earned an annual income equal to $255,000 today according to court papers.  The couple was married on June 2 that year.  Unfortunately, their union was not a blissful one.  According to Helen two years later, almost immediately Dr. Peggs began a "reign of terror," by "cursing and beating her." 

On June 2, 1910, Helen reminded Harry that it was their first year anniversary.  He replied, "We won't be living together next year."  Harry, it seems, was already shopping for a new romantic companion.  On October 7, 1910, he did not come home and Helen later discovered he had "been in the company of a Miss Oliver Palmer" that night.  Afterward, he "paid attention to a Miss Dunston," according to Helen's divorce filing in October 1911.  The New York Times reported, "She said she found the doctor and Miss Dunston in his motor car before 993 Columbus Avenue at a quarter of twelve one night and told Miss Dunston that her companion was her husband and she should leave him."  Miss Dunston, according to Helen, "paid no attention to her remarks."  After the incident, Harry returned to 300 West 107th Street only to get changes of clothing.

While the Peggs faced off in court, the family of Simon Docter had an even more serious issue with which to deal.  Caroline Docter went missing in October.  After a search of several days, her body was discovered "in some bushes at 190th street and Fort Washington Avenue," as reported by The Sun on October 29, 1911.  On October 31, the newspaper reported, "The autopsy showed that Miss Doctor [sic] had died of carbolic acid poisoning and the case was entered as a suicide."

The forensic evidence of the scene where Caroline's body was discovered, however, prompted Coroner Feinberg to reconsider the suicide ruling.  The following day, The Sun reported, "he believed that the body had been carried there after her death."  Caroline's dress had been neatly arranged and the shrubbery was undisturbed.  (Feinberg explained that death by swallowing carbolic acid would be accompanied by "death struggles.")  Importantly, there was no bottle found at the scene.  Had Caroline taken the poison at the location, the container should have been nearby.  Feinberg ordered police to conduct a search for witnesses.

Dr. George Peasles Shears and his wife, the former Susan H. Moore, lived here at the time.  Shears was born in Dutchess County, New York on January 15, 1860 and graduated from the New York University Medical School in 1889.  He was assistant surgeon at the Babies' and Mother's Hospital and an instructor of obstetrics at the Cornell University Medical School.  

The New York Times noted that he "was the author of various monographs on medical and allied topics."  But medicine was not the physician's only passion.  The Evening Post said, "Dr. Shears was deeply read in metaphysics and was in particular a student of German thought."

Among the white collar tenants in the World War I years were William R. Clendinning, a 1915 graduate of Yale; George Jacob Soper, a director of the Metropolitan Designing Co. and treasurer and director of the Unity Brotherhood Association; and Edward M. Biggs, a director of Brokaw Brothers.  (Soper's wife filled her time with various causes.  In 1920 she was a member of the International Sunshine Society, the Legislative League, the Health Protective, and the Woman's Forum.)

Teresa Collins shared an apartment with her sister in 1925.  The 23-year-old, who worked as a private secretary in a large rubber firm, was instrumental in catching a conman that year.  Teresa's sister went on a vacation to the West and on the evening of August 10, while a female relative was visiting, someone knocked on the door.  The caller identified himself as "Detective Sergeant McDonald from Commissioner Enright's office," and said charges had been made against her, but "the matter could 'be straightened out for $500.'"

Upon telling the man that her sister was in Wyoming, he pulled his revolver and ordered the women into the bathroom.

"How about the money?" he asked.

Teresa and her visitor gathered up $300.  The detective left, saying he would return for the balance.

The savvy young woman immediately called the police.  They arranged a scheme by which Teresa would give a signal to the hall boy (an employee in high-end apartment buildings who were on call for helping with packages and such) to notify Detectives Fitzgerald and Josephs.

The next morning, the "detective" returned and demanded his $200.  Acting on the arranged signal, the hallboy called police headquarters.  Teresa stalled long enough for Fitzgerald and Josephs to arrive and arrest Joseph O'Leary.  As it turned out, O'Leary had been a policeman until being fired three years earlier.

In 1930, Mrs. A. Wells Green invited Lillian Reute to stay in her fourth-floor apartment while her houseguest underwent treatment.  Lillian, who was 63, was the widow of a General Electric Company executive and lived in Schenectady.  On June 24 she fatally plunged to the sidewalk.  The Standard Union reported, "Detectives believe she had fallen from a chair on the fire escape landing."

Lillian Reute fell to her death from the fourth-floor fire escape.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A renovation completed in 1948 resulted in three or four apartments per floor.  Among the first residents of the remodeled suites were Dr. Siegfried Boxer and his wife, the former Ella Weinberger.  Born in Vienna, Austria, Boxer graduated from the University of Vienna and served as chief of obstetrical surgery at the Lucina Hospital.  He escaped Nazi Austria to America in 1940.  When the couple moved into 300 West 107th Street, he had been director of the clinic at Gouverneur Hospital for four years.

Boxer assuredly was well acquainted with another tenant, gynecologist and obstetrician Dr. Robert Koehler and his wife, Mitzi.  Like Boxer, Koehler was born in Vienna and graduated from the University of Vienna.  He headed the Vienna Women's Hospital until 1938 when the Germans occupied Austria.  Like the Boxers, he and his wife fled to New York.  He was resident gynecologist at the Brooklyn Hebrew Home and Hospital for the Aged and served as a gynecologist at Beth Israel Hospital.

In the spring of 1960, Clara Panken moved into an apartment here.  The 41-year-old had suffered recently.  She and her former husband, attorney Morton L. Panken, were divorced in 1954 and Clara was given custody of their adopted daughter Bess, who was five at the time.  On March 24, 1960, a few weeks before moving into 300 West 107th Street, Bess, now nine years old, fell to her death from a window of their West End Avenue apartment.  After an investigation, the girl's death was ruled accidental.

Shockingly, on July 2, Clara Panken walked into the 126th Street police station and confessed that she had murdered her adopted daughter.  Described by police as being "conscience-stricken," she said that on that afternoon she picked up Bess at P.S. 75.  At home, she took her into the bathroom, "which has a 20-by-30-inch window," according to The New York Times, and told Bess "she would teach her to fly."  She persuaded her to climb through the window and onto the ledge, then pushed her to her death.  Clara was charged with homicide.

A fascinating tenant arrived in 1962.  Artist Alice Neel was born in 1900 in Philadelphia, but spent most of her life in New York.  Self-taught, she painted mostly portraits, using as models her Harlem neighbors, "as well as artists, activists, mothers, children, and a series of pregnant women, a subject long ignored in the history of art," according to her biography by the MoMA.  In 1974, the Whitney held a retrospective of her work.

Alice Neel died in 1984.  Afterward, Phoebe Hoban visited her eight-room apartment.  In her 2010 Alice Neel, The Art of Not Sitting Pretty she writes:

There are paintings everywhere--on the walls, stacked in the hall.  Everything has been left just as it was when Neel lived and worked here, covering hundreds of canvases with ruthlessly honest portraits of the people who intrigued her, from neighborhood children to Andy Warhol.

Alice Neel's family retained the apartment, keeping it as a type of time capsule of her residency here.

Alice Neel's granddaughter, Olivia, looks over her shoulder in this January 5, 1979 photograph in the apartment.  Alice Neel, People Come First, by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

The building was remodeled again in 1986.  Other than the commercial basement level, little of the building's exterior has been changed.

photographs by the author