The 1886 353 and 355 West 123rd Street

 

In May 1885, architect M. Louis Ungrich began sketching out "ten three-story and basement brick and stone private dwellings" on West 123rd Street between Morningside and Manhattan Avenues for developers Frank Tilford and F. K. Keller.  Ungrich designed the row as alternating, five mirror-image pairs--A-B, C-D, A-B, C-D, and A-B.  

Among the A and B models were 353 and 355 West 123rd Street.  The 16-foot wide homes were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone above the stone-faced basement level.  The iron areaway fencing and stoop railings included light-hearted squiggly spindles, typical of the Queen Anne style.  A prominent bandcourse and an intermediate cornice defined the stories.  The two houses shared an elaborate terra cotta panel of swirling vines around a shell at the third floor, and a terra cotta rondel of a flower backed by a sunburst decorated each gable.

On November 24, 1886, Tilford & Keller sold 353 West 123rd Street to real estate operator John W. Hutchinson for $15,000--about $500,000 in 2025.  Days after the family moved in, a near disaster occurred.

On December 7, The New York Times reported, "Fire broke out at 4:30 o'clock yesterday morning in the basement of No. 353 West One Hundred and Twenty-third street...occupied by J. W. Hutchinson and routed the family out."  Hutchinson estimated the damage at about $20,000 in today's money.

The Hutchinsons' residency was short lived.  In May 1889, they sold the house to banker Cornelius Brinkman Outcalt and his wife, the former Irene Augusta Curtis, for $14,250.  The couple had three children, Cornelius Jr., Louis Clark, and John C.--aged 18, 15 and 7 years old, respectively, at the time.  

(The couple had earlier suffered intense grief.  Their first child, Marie Cecilia, died at the age of five in May 1873.  Then, in unspeakable tragedy, Paul Curtis and Gussie Whitney died on October 13 and October 25, 1884.  They were seven and four years old.)

Cornelius B. Outcalt was born on April 21, 1851.  On May 25, 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the 7th Regiment, New York State Militia, listing his age at 21.  How an officer could mistake a ten-year-old for an adult is puzzling, but Outcalt was enlisted as a private and served for 30 days.  

When he and the family moved into the West 123rd Street house, he was the cashier of the National Exchange Bank, but he shortly afterward retired.  He became the center of a bizarre mystery in 1895.

On February 21, Outcalt attended a dinner hosted by the newspaper The Fourth Estate.  While there, he met William Sammons, the brother of the newspaper's editor, who was described by the New York Herald as "something of a politician."  Outcalt did not return home that evening.  The Sun reported, "They [i.e., Outcalt and Sammons] drank a great deal of wine, and the next day both were missing."

Four days later, a message was telephoned to a drugstore near the Outcalt house informing the family that Cornelius was "at the Orawaupum Hotel, in White Plains, with a stranger," as reported by the New York Herald.  The Sun said that Irene and Cornelius, Jr. traveled there with Detective Brock, a friend of the family.

They found Outcalt, disoriented, in one room of the hotel.  The Sun said he "had the appearance of being sick and dazed."  Sammons was asleep in the adjoining room.  When Brock arrested him, Sammons protested that he would not be arrested.  "But you are arrested," he was told.

The New York Herald reported, "White Plains was in a great excitement over the arrest.  It was reported that Simmins [sic] had been drugging his companion and that a deep mystery was about to be unveiled."  Back home, on February 26, a reporter from The Sun visited the Outcalt house.  The journalist wrote, "He was about to explain the matter when his wife interfered, and prevented him from saying."  Sammons was later acquitted and the details of the supposed kidnapping were never revealed.

The following year, on February 4, 1896, Irene Augusta Outcalt died in the house.  In reporting her death, one newspaper commented, "In her early days, Mrs. Outcalt was one of the belles of metropolitan society."  In March 1898, Cornelius, Jr. sold the house to Thomas Daniels.

In the meantime, John Sullivan and his wife, the former Elizabeth A. Mars, lived next door.  John died at 355 West 123rd Street on May 19, 1896 at the age of 79.  The New York Herald said his death came "after a lingering illness, which he bore with Christian fortitude."  Following his funeral in the parlor, a solemn requiem mass was held for him at the Church of St. Joseph at the corner of Columbus Avenue and 125th Street.

Elizabeth A. Sullivan died three years later, on April 21, 1899.  The house was sold to Nathan Pollock, a clothing manufacturer.  He declared bankruptcy on January 28, 1901, after which the house was operated as a boarding house.  Among the residents in 1904 was a piano teacher, who advertised, "Teacher of piano desires pupils; Dr. Mason's system of touch and technique; terms moderate.  Studio 355 West 123d st."

Edward S. Root lived in the house as early as 1908.  Born in 1857, he was Fire Chief of the 24th Battalion and the head of E. Root & Co., "electrical subway engineers and contractors."

By then, 353 West 123rd Street was a rooming house.  During the 1907-08 academic year, three students attending the Jewish Theological Seminary of America roomed here, as well as did Rabbi Joseph Hevesh, a graduate of the seminary.

An interesting roomer in 353 West 123rd Street was Rev. Francis Le Baron.  Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1824, he came from "a family which traces its ancestry to the first Francis Le Baron, who came to New England among the earliest settlers," according to The Sun.  After serving as a Unitarian clergyman, "he left the church when he was 30 years old to engage in literature," said the newspaper.  Among his works were A Discourse on the Death of Abraham Lincoln, Atheism Among the People, and The Poet and His Song.  Among his celebrated friends were Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sculptor Daniel C. French, and Edward Everett Hale.

On the morning of February 16, 1911, well after the time that Le Baron normally got up, someone checked to see if the 87-year-old was alright.  He had died during the night.  The Sun reported, "Mr. Le Baron lost his fortune some years ago.  His friends in New York are arranging for the removal of his body to Boston, where it will be cremated."

Later that year, an advertisement in the New York Evening Telegram advertised 353 West 123rd Street for rent.  "Furnished 11 room house, exceptionally clean; good neighborhood, $75 rent; account sickness."  The monthly rent would translate to about $2,480 today.

The roomers in both houses were still professional.  Among those living at 355 in 1917 was Dr. Otto Lorenzi.  A graduate of Sibley College of Cornell University, he was an engineer with the Combustion Engineering Corporation.  And living next door was Fernando Staud Ximenes, who was on the interpreting staff of American Institute of International Law.

In 1941, the paneled outer and inner entrance doors were intact in both houses.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Both buildings continued to be rooming houses through mid-century.  A renovation to 355 in 1966 resulted in one apartment in the parlor level, with furnished rooms throughout the rest of the building.  It was most likely during that remodeling that the brick was painted (ironically enough, brick red) and the brownstone details at the parlor level painted white.

No. 353 was converted into a two-family residence in 1983, with duplex apartments on the basement and parlor levels, and second and third floors.  

photographs by the author