The Norman - 37-43 West 93rd Street

 

Cast iron lamps with milk glass globes once flanked the one-stepped stoop.  image via cityrealty.com

A Polish immigrant, Julius Tishman founded his real estate development company, Julius Tishman & Sons, in 1898.  Less than a decade later, the company was erecting substantial buildings, like The Norman, completed in 1909 at 37 to 43 West 93rd Street.  Designed by Charles B. Meyers, the structure had cost the Tishmans $225,000 to construct--a considerable $8 million in 2025 terms.

The Norman's two-story rusticated base was faced in limestone, its six upper floors in gray brick.  Meyers successfully married Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival styles in the design--with the French slightly trumping the Italian.  The impressive entrance was framed with foliate carvings and flanked by pilasters carved with heavy bellflowers.  Scrolled brackets upheld a triangular pediment filled with a massive cartouche surrounded with ferns and flowers.  It announced the building's name.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

The openings of the second floor were fronted with lacy French balconettes.  Faux, stone balustraded balconies appeared at the third floor, and two iron-railed balconies clung to the fourth.  Frothy cartouches adorned the windows of the top floor, and elongated brackets hung with wreaths supported the cornice.

Advertisements for The Norman offered apartments of "6, 7 and 8 Rooms and 2 Baths" with "3 lavatories [and] large closet room."  Rents ranged from $1,000 to $1,500 per year (about $3,000 a month for the most expensive in today's terms).

Among the early tenants was Alice Minnie Herts.  A graduate of Normal College and the Sorbonne, Herts got involved in social work before founding the Children's Educational Theatre in 1903.  Its purpose, she wrote in 1911, was:

...to make our thousands of immigrant children better citizens; to educate them; to develop their sympathies and their characters; to give them the possible sort of a good time, and to counteract the evil and sordid influences of tenement and factory.

The stalwart educator enlisted Samuel Clemens to serve as the board's president.  He was quoted in Good Housekeeping in November 1913 saying, "I consider [the Children's Educational Theatre] the greatest citizen-making force of the century."

Alice Minnie Herts, The Children's Educational Theatre, 1911 (copyright expired)

Whether Alice initially shared an apartment with her brother, Isaac H. Herts, and his wife, is unclear.  They too, lived in the building.  He and Benjamin H. Herts, his and Alice's brother, had founded the interior decorating and furniture design firm Herts Brothers in 1876.  The influential concern furnished the New York Produce Exchange, the Knickerbocker and the St. Regis hotels, and William Backhouse Astor, Jr.'s steam yacht, the Nourmahal.  The firm closed in 1908.

Alice Herts was a close friend of portrait painter Elsie Dodge Pattee.  The daughter of a wealthy dry goods merchant, she had lived in France before returning to New York in 1912.  Alice took charge of re-introducing Pattee to Manhattan society.

On January 5, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Miss A. Minnie Herts has sent out cards for two receptions to introduce Miss [sic] Elsie Dodge Pattee...They will take place in Miss Herts's home, 37 West Ninety-third Street."  And on January 19, the newspaper announced, "Miss A. M. Herts...will be home this afternoon for Mrs. Elsie Dodge Pattee."

The social spotlight would focus more directly onto Herts two months later.  On March 12, The New York Times reported that she and Jacob Heniger had been married the previous day in Alice Minnie Herts's apartment.  The article mentioned, "Mr. Heniger is also interested in educational work," and closed, "After a short trip through the South Mr. and Mrs. Heniger will live in this city."

Indeed they did.  They retained Alice's apartment in The Norman.  And while Jacob Heniger was "interested in educational work," it was not his profession.  He held the position of Inspector of Tenements, earning $1,500 per year (about $44,200 in today's money).

In the meantime, the couple's neighbors in the building were white collar merchants, lawyers and doctors.  Among them were Charles F. Hofferberth, president of the Hofferberth Troy Company, a lumber concern; and lace salesman Walter E. Bennett.  Bennett began working for Goldenberg Bros. & Co. in 1888 at the age of 15.  Now he traveled throughout the South for the firm.

The country's entry into World War I was felt deeply by two families of The Norman.  In 1916, Theodore Rousseau enrolled in the U.S. Army.  The following year, on December 13, 1917, David Maurice Wolff, who had been working in the stock brokerage firm of H. P. Goodschmidt, enlisted with the 213th Aero Squadron.  The Evening World remarked that the 22-year-old Wolff, "became interested in aeronautics soon after war was declared."  Rousseau trained in Plattsburg, New York and Wolff at Mineola, Long Island.

Wolff's mother, Grace, was now alone.  David M. Wolff, Sr. had died in their apartment on September 6, 1913.  The younger Wolff boarded the converted ocean liner S. S. Tuscania on January 27, 1918, one of 2,000 American troops on the ship.  One can imagine the terror Grace Wolff felt when she read the headlines on February 7.  The banner of The Buffalo Commercial read, "Transport Carrying Yankee Soldiers Victim Of U-Boat."  A torpedo from a German submarine had struck the troop carrier.

On February 8, The Evening World remarked, "Wolff is the only son of his widowed mother, Mrs. Grace K. Wolff, with whom he lived at No. 37 West Ninety-third Street."  Happily, the following day The New York Times reported that David "cabled his mother, Mrs. Grace Wolff, at her home...yesterday that he had arrived safely."  

Isaac H. Herts, "a pioneer in the furniture business in New York city, and founder and president of the firm of Herts Brothers Company," as described by the New York Herald, died "after a prolonged illness" in his apartment on January 11, 1918 at the age of 70.

Retired insurance man James H. Crawford lived here at the time.  A widower, he hosted a benefit concert in his apartment on March 15, 1920 for Lille University in France.  After receiving his guests, he excused himself and went into a bedroom.  The New-York Tribune said, "His body was found in his room a few minutes" later.  The 70-year-old had apparently suffered a heart attack.

Other residents around the same time were P. J. O'Leary, head of the O'Leary Lumber Co.; and Dr. Michael Mislig.  By the Depression years, Justice John J. Freschi and his wife, Mary; and wholesale lumber merchant Cornelius E. Kennedy were occupants.

P. J. O'Leary  American Lumberman, December 16, 1922 (copyright expired)

Born in 1876 in Greenwich Village, John J. Freschi graduated from New York University and New York University Law School.  He was appointed to Special Sessions by Mayor John Purroy Mitchel.  Freschi headed the Italian-American committee for the re-election of Mayor James Walker in 1925.  Walker re-appointed him to Special Sessions in 1931.  

On April 25, 1931, The New York Times reported that Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt had appointed Freschi to the Court of General Sessions.  In that capacity, The Times would remark years later, he "presided at many sensational criminal trials."

Cornelius E. Kennedy was a life-long bachelor.  Born in Burlington, Vermont in 1870, he founded C. E. Kennedy, Inc. in 1906.  His firm dealt in both American and Canadian lumber.

On the evening of December 30, 1938, Kennedy was struck by an automobile at the corner of 93rd Street and Central Park West.  The 69-year-old died in Harlem Hospital four days later.

The cornice survived as late as 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Calling him, "a leader among Americans of Italian descent in this city for many years," on July 30, 1944 The New York Times reported on the death of Judge John J. Freschi.  The article said, "The jurist was stricken in his chambers in the Criminal Courts Building on July 20."  He had suffered a ruptured appendix.

In recalling Freschi's career that had included "sixty notable trials," the newspaper said:

He sat in the kidnaping trial of Galla and Sacoda in 1938, the first kidnaping case tried in New York that resulted in a death verdict under the Lindbergh law.  He also presided over the trail of Louis (Lepke) Buchalter for extortion in 1940 when the latter received a sentence of 30 years to life imprisonment before his execution on a murder conviction.

John J. Freschi's funeral was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral on August 1.  The New York Times estimated that 1,000 persons attended the mass of requiem.  Among his honorary pallbearers were Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner.

image via cityrealty.com

The Norman was converted to a cooperative in the third quarter of the 20th century.  In doing so, none of the apartments were reduced in size.  At some point, the cornice, which was showing damage at early as 1941, was removed.  

In September 1999, a four-bedroom, two-bath co-op sold for $599,000.  Within a decade, property values had risen.  In February 2007, a three-bedroom, two-bath apartment sold for $1.6 million.  

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post.