The James A. Foley House - 316 East 18th Street

 

A laudable recreation of the entrance and window frames replaced the lost originals.  photo by Ted Leather

An advertisement in the New York Herald on November 6, 1867 described the recently built house at 316 East 18th Street:

For Sale--With possession, house and furniture; house 3 stories, high stoop and brown stone front, with all conveniences and in fine order.

It was purchased by the William L. Colby family.  Three stories tall and 20-feet wide, its individual Italianate design was unlike others on the block.  The elliptically arched openings sat within architrave frames, including the unusual doorway.  Its multi-layered frame was capped with a gently arched cornice.  A foliate-bracketed cornice with paneled fascia crowned the design.

William L. Colby was an important figure in the printing industry, a close associate of Richard March Hoe, the head of R. Hoe & Company.  Hoe invented the rotary printing press in 1843.  Colby, too, improved the printing process.  In his 1885 History of R. Hoe & Company, Stephen D. Tucker noted that around 1858, "Mr. William L. Colby devised a plan for driving the type bed of cylinder presses through a universal joint."  The device was adopted for most of the R. Hoe & Company presses.

Colby and his wife, the former Malvina Walkington, had three sons and three daughters.  (The close relationship between Colby and Roe was evidenced in the name of the Colbys' youngest son: Richard March Hoe Colby.)  The other children were John, Benjamin L., Sarah E., Mary, and Malvina W.  

When the family moved into the East 18th Street house, Richard March Hoe Colby was enrolled at the College of the City of New York.  His brothers, John and Benjamin L. Colby, joined the Roe firm by 1871; and Malvina W. Colby taught in the primary department of Grammar School No. 2 at 116 Henry Street in 1876.

William L. Colby died on March 6, 1881 at the age of 70.  His funeral was held in the parlor three days later.  Malvina survived him by 12 years, dying in the house on August 7, 1892 at the age of 78.  Her funeral, too, was held in the residence.

The former Colby house was occupied by several physicians starting in 1894 with a dentist named Mogovin.  German immigrants Dr. Otto Maier, a gynecologist, and his wife, Dina, occupied the house in 1899.  

Their lives were rocked in the fall of 1899 when Otto Maier was accused of murder.  Nora Seltz was brought to Bellevue Hospital on October 18 "following an operation performed by some person or persons unknown," as reported by the New-York Tribune.  (The implication was that Seltz had had an abortion.)  After the 38-year-old patient died, Dr. Maier and an associate, Dr. Henry Purdy, were arrested and charged for murder.

Police Captain Delaney testified during the trial on October 27, saying "the reason why he had had the physicians arrested was because they had been the last to attend her."

The judge asked, "Was that the sole reason?"

"Yes."

The jury decided that Nora Seltz's death was due to blood poisoning following the earlier operation.  The New-York Tribune reported, "The two physicians were exonerated from all blame."

After having occupied the East 18th Street house for about a decade, the Maiers began a family.  Both 41 years old at the time, their daughter Dorothea was born in 1906 and a year later Herbert was born.  (Herbert would follow in his father's professional footsteps, eventually becoming chair of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.)

On February 25, 1910, the New-York Tribune reported, "Otto Maier sold to a Mr. Foley for occupancy No. 316 East 18th Street."  "Mr. Foley" was James Foley, a well-known figure within Tammany Hall politics and since 1879 had been chairman of the General Committee of the Twelfth Assembly District.  He and his wife, the former Anne Moran, had eleven children. 

Son James A. Foley, born on June 21, 1882, was also involved in politics.  Three years before his parents purchased 316 East 18th Street, he was elected to the New York State Assembly.  In 1913, he was elected to the New York State Senate.

In the meantime, his brother Frank was a broker with C. I. Hudson & Co. and held the rank of major in the Twelfth Regiment of Infantry.  Frank Joseph Foley was married to Rosa A. Metzner on Long Island on October 8, 1913.  Senator James A. Foley was his brother's best man.

The year 1919 was a significant one within the Foley household.  On May 14, son Edward died.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 16 followed by a solemn mass of requiem at the Church of the Epiphany on Second Avenue.

Surprisingly, James A. Foley's wedding to Mabel Graham Murphy was celebrated a month later, on June 21.  Shortly afterward, James Foley fell ill.  Described by The Evening World as a "veteran Democratic political leader," he died on August 10.  As had been the case with his son, his funeral was held in the house followed by a mass at the Church of the Epiphany.

On August 12, The Evening World reported, "Hundreds of persons attended the funeral to-day of James Foley...Two hundred and fifty members of the Democratic Committee of the 12th Assembly District escorted the body to the church and later to Calvary Cemetery."  The mourners represented a who's-who of New York politics.  The guard of honor at the gravesite was composed of Tammany chief Charles F. Murphy and four judges and an alderman.  Also present were Governor Alfred Smith and his wife, former Governor Martin Henry Glynn, Police Commissioner Robert F. Wagner, President of the Board of Aldermen Robert L. Moses and other leaders.

The East 18th Street house was now a female domain.  Florence J., Anna M., Mary E., Kathryn and Jane, still unmarried, remained with their mother.  And around the time of James's death, Anne's widowed sister, Elizabeth M. Leary, moved in.

Only two years after the parlor was the scene of two Foley funerals, it was the setting of Elizabeth Leary's.  She died here on April 6, 1921 and, like the others, her funeral was followed by a mass at the Church of the Epiphany. 

Florence M. Foley was involved in a frightening accident on October 12, 1927.  The Brooklyn Daily Star reported, "Edward O'Hare, sixty-five...was struck by an auto operated by Florence M. Foley, 316 East Eighteenth street, Manhattan, at Forty-sixth (Bliss) street and Queen's boulevard."  O'Hare was transported to St. John's Hospital with "multiple contusions of the head, neck and back."

At some point in the first half of the 20th century, the Victorian window surrounds were shaved flat.  The original entrance frame was intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Five months later, on March 29, 1928, Anne Moran Foley died in the East 18th Street house at the age of 81.  The New York Times reported, "This was learned yesterday in the Surrogate's Court when her son, Surrogate James A. Foley, failed to take his place on the bench in the morning."  The article noted that she was survived by seven of her eleven children.  Once again, a Foley funeral mass was held in the Church of the Epiphany.

The last of the Foley family to occupy the house was Kathryn.  When she sold it in April 1962, The New York Times commented, "The house had been in the seller's family for fifty-three years."  

photograph by Ted Leather

At some point before 1941, the Foleys had shaved off the window surrounds and modernized the stoop railings.  Still a single family home, in 2007 the owners initiated a two-year renovation.  It was apparently at this time that a period-appropriate entrance frame and window surrounds were fabricated.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post