A hint of the original appearance of the 4-story house-and-store can be gleaned in the building next door. photograph by Ted Leather
Most of the houses that filled the block on the east side of First Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets in the first half of the 19th century had stores on the ground floor. The four-story house-and-store at the southeast corner of West 11th Street was erected in 1841. By 1851, A. T. Higbie operated a grocery in the store space.
The neighborhood was filled with Irish immigrants in the years just before the outbreak of the Civil War. John McGuire, who came from County Fermanagh, Ireland, lived here in 1860; and the following year Bridget Brenan, a widow, and John McManus, a laborer, occupied rooms here. In the meantime, Thomas Butler had opened a saloon in the former grocery space.
The saloon saw a succession of proprietors over the subsequent years. Mary McLaughlin, the widow of Charles McLaughlin, not only ran this saloon, but owned another at 390 Tenth Avenue in the notorious Hell's Kitchen district. Michael J. McCabe took over in 1867 and moved his family into the upper floors. By then, German immigrants were changing the personality of the neighborhood. Among the McCabes' neighbors in the building were Jacob Gebhardt, a porter; Elizabeth Phahl, a widow; and Eliza J. Purty, who ran a candy store on West 18th Street.
Change came in October 1872 when Henry Bernhardt transferred the title of 180 First Avenue to Peter Ludwig and Maria Bernhardt. No money was exchanged in the transaction. In return for the First Avenue house, Peter and Maria transferred title to another on East 13th Street, just east of Avenue A.
Peter L. Bernhardt converted the house to a tenement, adding an additional floor. His architect added an ambitious cast metal corner with half-round pediment that announced the date of construction and Peter's monogram. A single-story store was erected to the rear at 400 East 11th Street. It doubled as the residential entrance to the tenement.
photograph by Ted Leather
Bernhardt was born in Germany in 1831. He married Maria Geiger in New York City in 1853. The couple had four children, Henry, Dorothea, Helena J. and Louise. The family moved into one of the upstairs apartments.
Peter Bernhardt took over the saloon. It was not long before trouble occurred. On February 2, 1872, The New York Times reported, "At noon yesterday an affray occured [sic] in the oyster-saloon, No. 180 First-avenue, during which William Swezey, one of the employes [sic] of the saloon, was struck on the head by Fred[erick] Golden, and received a severe wound."
It appears that Golden was on a mid-day drunk and got out of control. Swezey was, most likely, trying to eject his unruly customer. It is unclear what Golden used to bonk him on the head, but it might have been a bottle, which broke. The New York Times noted, "Philander Weeks, another employe [sic], was cut on the hands and severely injured." Golden was arrested and jailed.
The Saul family, who lived upstairs, suffered a horrific tragedy on June 11, 1874. The Sun reported that four-year-old Emma Saul "fell into a tub of boiling water" at 2:00 that morning. The Daily Graphic explained, "She was rescued from the boiler almost immediately, but was terribly burned, having been completely immersed in the water, which had but just been removed from the stove." The little girl died in the apartment that afternoon.
Peter and Maria Bernhardt would eventually own several Manhattan properties. As early as 1879, the family moved out, although retaining possession of the building. That year Meyer Himmelweit ran a drygoods store in the former saloon space, and Adloph T. Glunz ran a grocery in the 11th Street store. The names of the tenants upstairs were mostly German by now, Aneshansel, Sternshorn, and Kochendoerfer among them.
Charles Euler and his wife became medical pioneers of a sort when they brought home their seven-month-old baby boy in the summer of 1895. When born, the premature infant had little hope for survival. But Charles Euler, Jr., "a crinkled little roseleaf of humanity," as described by The Weekly Press on June 26, was sent home inside an incubator--a relatively new invention of the Boston-based Hub company. The article said, "He is a precocious little chap--this tenant of an incubator, for he already has begun to hold on with his little lips to the instrument which drops barley water and sterilized milk into his dot of a mouth."
Charles Euler, Jr. came home to 180 First Avenue in this incubator. The Weekly Press, June 26, 1895 (copyright expired)
On June 10, 1910, six months before his death at the age of 79, Peter Ludwig Bernhardt sold 180 First Avenue to Lambert S. Quackenbush.
Among the tenants Quackenbush inherited were the Porazzo family. Carmine Anthony Porazzo and his wife, the former Maria Addonizio, moved into an apartment here around 1874. The couple were both natives of Avellino, Italy. Born in 1850, Carmine eventually earned the nickname the "Father of the East Side," according to the New York Telegram. The newspaper said, "If he heard of a family about to be evicted, he hastened around with a little something to satisfy the landlord. If somebody were out of luck, or, as often happened, got into trouble with the police, Carmine could be relied upon."
Among those who "got into trouble with the police," were Carmine, himself, and his son, Pasquale, known as Patsy. He, his wife, Rosina Catania, and their six children also lived in the building. Carmine and Pasquale converted the drygoods space to an illegal saloon.
On February 23, 1912, The Plattsburgh Sentinel reported on the raids of "fifty drinking places, cafes, hotels, cellars and sub-cellars that...had no licenses to sell." The article said, "Over three hundred barrels of wine were confiscated in the place of C. A. Porazzo...which the commissioner values at about $15,000." (The figure would translate to about $511,000 in 2025.) The American Advance added, "Many of the joints had regular bars fitted up for business."
The following month, on March 20, The Evening World reported that Pasquale's 17-year-old son, George, was "indicted for forgery in the second degree." Having had no previous conviction, George's charge was dismissed.
At the time, the Italian community was plagued by a terroristic group called La Mano Nera, or the Black Hand. The Italian-American group used violence, including assassinations and bombings, to extort money from well-to-do Italians.
On June 14, 1914, the New York Herald reported on the "hundreds of bomb outrages in New York city--all directly traceable to the Black Hand" that had been committed the previous year. On the list was the March 5, 1913 bombing at the "Carmine Porazzo wine cellar, No. 400 East Eleventh street."
Julius Regina and his wife occupied a fifth floor apartment here in 1915 with their four children, Katherine, Louis, Josphine and Lena. The oldest was five years old and Lena was still an infant.
On the afternoon of November 23, 1915, Mrs. Regina went shopping, leaving her the children unattended. The Evening World reported that they, "played with matches until a curtain caught fire. They were screaming in terror when their mother, Mrs. Julius Regina, returning from a store, heard their cries and rushed into the room."
Expectedly, other residents rushed into the hallway. The Evening World reported that 11-year-old Modesta Taduca darted through the crowd and into the apartment. She aided Mrs. Regina to pull all the children out of the "blazing room." The article said that firefighters soon extinguished the fire.
Pasquale Porazzo was in trouble again in 1922. On January 13, The New York Times reported, "The local Italian lottery business, which is said to have resulted in forty murders since 1916, finally has been broken up." The article that six men had been arrested, including Pasquale Porazzo, "a tailor."
Carmine Porazzo's sometimes shady operations did not taint his reputation in the neighborhood. On April 4, 1924, the New York Telegram reported on his funeral, the article's headline reading: "'Father' of East Side Buried / Huge Throngs Weep at Bier of Carmine Porazzo--Funeral of Record Size." The article said:
There were at least thirty carriages loaded down with flowers. The horse-drawn procession of mourners required an hour to pass a given point. Some said there were 300 vehicles, but as it is unlucky to count the coaches in a funeral train the exact number probably will never be known.
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In 1941, a massive advertising mural was painted on the building's side. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The tenement continued to be home mostly to immigrant families throughout the subsequent years. In the third quarter of the century, the neighborhood's demographics changed and trendy restaurants and shops redefined its personality. In July 2018, Brazilian-born artist Eduardo Kobra painted a colorful mural of Michael Jackson on the building's side.
Kobra's mural depicts Jackson as a youth (left) and an adult (right). photograph by Ted Leather
There are still 16 apartments in the vintage building that Peter L. Bernhardt substantially remodeled in 1872.
photograph by Ted Leather
many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post
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