The Lost Joseph and Edward Conway Houses - 220 and 222 East 45th Street

from the collection of the New York Public Library 

Actor, playwright and dramatist Henry J. Conway opened his version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly in Boston in November 1852.  Exactly one year later, in November 1853, P. T. Barnum brought Conway's play to his American Museum on Broadway.

Shortly afterward, Conway moved his family to 150 East 45th Street (renumbered 222 in 1867)--one of two identical frame houses erected in 1854.  Two bays wide and three stories tall, their builder forewent the stoop seen in early Italianate style houses going up in the lower parts of Manhattan.  The earred frames of the entrances were carry-overs from the earlier Greek Revival style, but the molded window cornices and bracketed wooden terminal cornices were pure Italianate.

Conway and his wife Hetty J., had two sons, Joseph and Edward.  Hetty Conway was also an actor and appeared on the stage as Mrs. Conway.  Among the first plays Conway wrote while living in the East 45th Street house was his 1856 Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.  Other works attributed to him are The Haunted House, Modern Aristocrats, and Marie Antoinette.

The family briefly leased the house in 1857.  An advertisement in the New York Herald offered: "House to Let--To let, to a gentleman and wife, a small, neat, convenient and well furnished house; gas and Croton."  ("Croton" referred to indoor water, supplied by the Croton Reservoir.  Having both lighting gas and indoor plumbing would have been on the cutting edge of domestic conveniences.)

Henry J. Conway died around 1860.  By the following year, Joseph S. Conway operated his dental office in the house.  An advertisement in 1861 read:

Artificial teeth inserted for the lowest possible price; teeth filled with gold; $1; bone filling, 50 cts; silver 50 cts, and upwards; teeth extracted without pain, 25c, by Dr. J. S. Conway, 150 East 45th st, bet 2d and 3d aves.

The cost of having one's tooth pulled would convert to about $10 in 2025. 

In the meantime, the house next door had seen a series of occupants.  In the early 1860s, Thomas Gillis, a drover, and his family lived here.  They were followed by Elizabeth (sometimes known as Betti) Kronberger, the widow of David.  She listed her profession as "sewing."  Betti lived in the house through  the 1870s, when the Sherman family moved in.  Daniel Sherman was a bricklayer and Isaac M. Sherman was a watchman.

Hetty J. Conway disappeared from the city directories after 1877, strongly suggesting she died that year.  Joseph and Edward remained at 222 East 45th Street until around 1879 when Edward was married and the brothers became next door neighbors.

Edward Conway and his bride, Mary, purchased 220 East 45th Street.  The parlor was the heartbreaking scene of the funeral of their one-year-old daughter, Fannie Louisa, on April 13, 1881.

New York City had a serious problem in the 1880s.  The growing metropolis depended on horses to move the city.  Each of the 150,000 horses that pulled wagons, coaches, streetcars and carriages dropped up to 30 pounds of manure each day.  Street cleaners and the stable owners contracted with manure dumps to dispose of the odorous piles.  

Not far from the Conway brothers' homes was Michael Kane's manure dump.  In December 1884, Kane was fined "for maintaining a nuisance in the manure heap," according to The New York Times.  Dr. Joseph S. Conway came to his defense.  He testified in court on December 22 that he, "not only voluntarily lives within the radius of the odors, but has often resorted to the dump while it steamed for the purpose of inhaling the vapor," related the article.  According to Conway, "He was certain that his throat was benefited by the operation."

Dr. Joseph S. Conway died on March 9, 1897.  Interestingly, his funeral was held next door.  His obituary in the New York Herald noted, "Funeral services at the residence of his brother, Edward Conway, 220 East 45th st."

No. 222 East 45th Street was occupied by Josephine Anderson by 1901.  While careful not to describe herself as a doctor, she treated women patients.  An advertisement in 1903 read, "Josephine Anderson positively cures irregularities or no charge; longest cases relieved; ladies boarded.  222 East 45th."  Facilities that offered boarding to female patients often provided abortion services--their clients unable to travel for several days afterward.  Anderson operated from the house through at least 1906.

Edward and Mary Conway had two sons, Harry L. and John.  Starting in 1899, the family took in boarders.  Perhaps in deference to Henry and Hetty's backgrounds, most of the boarders were involved in the theater.  In 1899, the Shuman Sisters, a popular vaudeville team, boarded with the Conways and in 1901 actor Lawrence Griffith was here.

The little wooden houses were surrounded by tenement buildings in 1918. from the collection of the New York Public Library 

Upon John E. Conway's death on April 16, 1909, Henry L. was the last surviving Conway in the immediate family.  He had served at the Mexican border as a member of the 71st Regiment.  When America entered World War I, Henry L. Conway was deployed to the front.  On October 31, 1918, The Evening Telegram titled an article, "Lieutenant Conway Dies of Wounds."  In reporting his death, the newspaper said:

Lieutenant Conway was born December 14, 1888, at No. 220 East Forty-fifth street, where his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Conway, lived all their lives, and which is one of the landmarks of the mid-section of Manhattan.

Whether considered by locals as landmarks or not, the picturesque wooden houses would not survive much longer.  They were demolished in 1927 to be replaced with a 12-story factory-and-store building.