The 1875 47 St. Mark's Place

 

The family of Stephen C. Lynes had occupied the brick-faced house at 47 St. Mark's Place for decades when he died at the age of 85 on October 9, 1872.  The elegant neighborhood he knew in the 1840s was now home to hundreds of immigrant families, and former private homes were being converted to rooming houses or razed to make way for tenement buildings.

The Lynes house was offered for sale in February 1873.  It was replaced with a handsome flat (or apartment) building, completed by 1875.  Faced in brownstone, it sat back from the property line to create a yard, protected by a high iron fence.  The rusticated ground floor was designed in the Anglo-Italianate style, its three fully-arched openings crowned with faceted keystones.  

For the upper four floors--separated from the base by a molded intermediate cornice--the architect turned to neo-Grec, which was just beginning to overtake the Italianate style in domestic taste.  Prominent molded cornices above the windows were supported by geometric brackets.  The cast metal terminal cornice was a blend of both styles, with crisp lines of the brackets terminating in curvy foliate designs.

A double-flat (meaning there were two apartments per floor), the building filled with a variety of tenants.  Most had German surnames, along with a few Irish.  Their professions ranged from blue collar, like cartman Michael Hogan and porter Ferdinand Niemann; to middle class, like Gustav Falck, a clerk, and George Wittfielder, an upholsterer.

By 1879, Francis McConnell, a clerk, lived here with his wife, Mary, and their children.  On September 19, 1879, Mary advertised for a, "Middle-aged woman during the day only, to sleep at her own home, to assist in taking care of children and make herself generally useful.  Mrs. McConnell, 47 St. Mark's place, 1st floor."

If Mary McConnell was successful in finding a helper, it was not enough to relieve her stress.  A month later, on September 9, the New York Herald reported that she, "became suddenly demented, and fell in hurling her furniture from the window."  She was taken to the 17th Precinct police station where she, "flung the inkstand at the sergeant's head."  Mary was committed to The Tombs for a medical examination.  There, "she made an attack upon the physician," said the article.  The McConnells' children were "committed to the care of the French Guardian Society," according to the New York Herald.

Actress Florence Vincent, who lived here by the early 1890s, was deemed by the New York Dramatic Mirror as "well known and highly esteemed."  Starting her career in Albany, she had played with some of the most prominent actors of her day--Edwin Forrest, Adelaide Neilson, and Ada Cavendish among them.  

In the fall of 1893, she was appearing in The Chamois Hunter with Paul Barnes.  She had been ill "for a long time," according to the New York Dramatic Mirror, but because she was the sole supporter of her aged mother, "she continued to act even when she should have refrained from work."  Eventually, she was "forced to come home" and a few days later, on October 21, she died in her apartment.

Just before 10 p.m. on August 5, 1901, Patrolman Ozab "found a young man lying in a semi-conscious condition upon the grass in Stuyvesant Park," according to The Sun.  The boy was 18-year-old August Margraf, who lived here with his family.  Margraf was taken to Bellevue Hospital where it was revealed that he had narrowly averted death.  He had been stabbed over the heart, but the knife was "deflected by coming in contact with a rib."  In accordance with the rules of street justice, "Margraf admitted that he knew who had stabbed him, but wouldn't tell the police," said The Sun.

Sharp-eyed officers averted the break-ins of apartments here in 1903.  Detectives Ross and O'Neill spotted August Schaefer, alias "Black Butch," and Henry Miller, alias George Fisher, enter the building on the afternoon of January 28.  The World reported they were apprehended in the hallway, adding, "They put up a fight when arrested."  The policemen said the two were "responsible for several flat-house robberies."  When they were frisked, police found "jimmies and skeleton keys" on the pair.

On June 15, 1904, after their husbands went to work, Nita Ruthinger and Vetta Ruthmayer, along with Nita's children, Fred, Elsie and Ernest (10, 14 and 16 years old respectively), went to an East River pier to take part in St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church's 17th annual summer outing.  For $350, the members had chartered the 235-foot steam sidewheeler The General Slocum for a day trip up the East River and across the Long Island Sound to a picnic grove on Long Island. 

Over 1,300 passengers boarded the steamer which carried a crew of 35.  The church party was unaware of The General Slocum's recent history of problems--running aground several times and, at least twice, colliding with another ship.  Worse yet, Captain William Van Shaick had not practiced fire drills with his crew, as required by law, in years.  Life preservers and fire hoses had not been inspected since the craft was constructed 13 years earlier.

New York's Awful Excursion Boat Horror, 1904 (copyright expired)

Around 10:00, as the vessel entered the treacherous Hell Gate section of the East River, fire broke out below deck, quickly reaching a locker filled with gasoline and other flammable liquids.  Panic ensued as the flames broke through the deck.  The life boats were stuck to the side, having been painted in place.  Pandemonium broke out as children jumped or were tossed into the river, some sucked under in the turbulent Hells Gate eddies, others pulled into the side wheels and beaten to death.  Women who leapt overboard in their woolen Edwardian garments were quickly weighed down and drowned.  Within 15 minutes the General Slocum was burned to the waterline.  Of the 1,300 people on board, only 321 survived.

Bodies were pulled onto the shoreline.  Leslie's Weekly, 1904 (copyright expired)

Like dozens of Lower East Side men, Ernest Ruthinger and Edward Ruthmayer returned from work to an empty apartment.  Later that evening, Ruthmayer identified the body of his 38-year-old wife, Vetta.  The following day The Evening World listed Nita Ruthinger and her children among the still missing.   

Ernest Ruthinger identified Nita's and Ernest's bodies at the morgue on July 16.  The bodies of Fred and Elsie were never recovered (or were too charred to identify).  The Sun reported on the numerous funerals held the previous day, including that of "Mrs. Rudinger and Ernest Rudinger of 47 St. Mark's Place."

Eight decades after this photograph was taken in 1941, little has changed to the exterior appearance of the building.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Bernard Finkelstein lived here in 1938 when he was convicted of "cheating one of many persons of small sums under the pretext that he had 'influence' and would obtain news stand privileges for them," reported The New York Times on November 29.  The 30-year-old, according to John C. Mansfield, the circulation commissioner of morning and Sunday newspapers, "had defrauded newsstand operators of between $1,500 and $2,000 in the last year."  (The figure would translate to about $44,500 on the higher end in 2025.)  Among the witnesses at Finkelstein's trial was Mrs. Constance Morris.  She testified that "he induced her to give him $5 under the pretext that he would have her installed in a newsstand at a lucrative corner of the city," adding that, "he also induced her to sign a contract that he pretended was with a publishing concern."

In September 2020, the building was offered for sale, a realtor suggesting that it would be perfect for conversion to a single-family home.  That did not happen and today there are still just eight apartments in the building.

photograph by the author