The Former Christodora House - 310 East 9th Street

As early as 1867, Elias Koch and his family occupied 215 East 9th Street (renumbered 310 in 1868).  The recently built, Italianate-style house was the latest in domestic fashion.  Three bays wide and four stories tall, the brownstone-faced home was intended for a merchant class family.  The double-doored entrance was flanked by paneled pilasters that upheld elaborate scrolled brackets and an arched pediment.  

Elias Koch's "satchels" or bag business was located at 155 Chambers Street.  His family remained in the house until 1870 when it became a boarding house.  An unusual advertisement in the New York Herald on October 20 that year read, "A few mechanics can obtain good board at $5 per week, with a comfortable home, at 310 East 9th st., second floor; day boarders also."  (The weekly rent, including meals, would equal $125 in 2025.)

Why the ad specified mechanics is puzzling.  But the tenant list that year was much more varied.  Among the boarders were John Bunell, a clerk; Hamilton Cole and Payson Merrill, both lawyers; and Frederick Bonnele, who worked in a loft building far downtown.  On April 1, 1870, The New York Times reported, "Frederick Bonnele, of No. 310 East Ninth-street, received a severe wound yesterday by being struck on the head by a chain which fell through the hatchway from an upper floor at No. 92 Broad-street."

The proprietor of the 310 East 9th Street relinquished the lease in the spring of 1873.  By then, many of the upper rooms had been divided.  On April 28, an ad in the New York Herald read, "To Let--House 310 East Ninth Street, near Second avenue, well suited for a boarding house, having 26 rooms."  The rent was $2,400 a year, or about $5,400 per month today.

The tenants continued to be varied and increasingly their surnames were German.  Among the boarders in 1877 were John Horgan, a builder; violinmaker August Gemunder; Henry Casperfeld, a jeweler, and the Schlatter family--Charles was a clerk and John was in the trimmings business.

While living here in 1878, George W. Hammill, sexton of St. Mark's Church, became involved in a shocking abduction case.  Millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart died on April 10, 1876 and his body was interred in St. Mark's churchyard.  Hammill explained to officials,

About eight A. M. Francis Parker, who is the deputy sexton of the church of which I am the sexton, came to my house at No. 210 East Ninth street, and in an excited manner said, "The body is gone."  I asked him what body.  He said, "Stewart's."

 
Hammill followed Parker to the churchyard.  The dirt had been shoveled away from the grave and the slab over the vault had been removed.  By using a rope, said Hammill, "I then descended into the vault and noticed that the body had been carried away."  The ghoulish kidnapping of Alexander T. Stewart's body and subsequent ransom demands became national news and the crime was never fully solved.

Otto F. and Mathilda Burkhardt operated the boarding house by 1886.  In April 1889, she appeared in court against her next door neighbor, Emily S. Rollwagen, who owned and operated the boarding house at 312 East 9th Street.  She complained that Rollwagen was incapable of "properly managing this property," and its neglected condition was damaging her business.

Mathilda's husband, Otto F. Burkhardt, appeared in court two years later.  He sued broker John E. Ireland for fraud.  Rather insultingly, on January 9, 1891, The Press reported, "Burkhardt declares that Ireland has swindled him out of more than $7,000 by a series of fairy tales that reflect somewhat upon the complainant's intelligence."  

According to Burkhardt's complaint, in 1889 Ireland told him that he could get him appointed on the Board of Appraisers of Lands that was connected to the Aqueduct Commissioners.  The salary, said Ireland, was $3,500 per year.  But, he needed $1,000 "so as to entertain some big men who would recommend him."  Burkhardt handed over the cash and then, "discovered that no such office existed."

Later that year, in December, Ireland told Burkhardt "that he has raised $21,000 toward buying a patent to purify milk, for which $25,000 was asked."  He said if Burkhard provided the balance, he "could get into a good thing on the ground floor."  Burkhardt invested $3,500 then found out that there was no such company.  Five months later, in May 1890, as reported by The Press, "Burkhard says Ireland got up a story about having to take up a note on a New York city bank.  Burkhardt let him have $525 and then discovered that there was no such note."  

Before the time Burkhardt realized that his "friend" was a fraudster, he had lost nearly $7,000.

The Italianate stoop railings and newels were intact in 1903 when artist E. Pallme, who lived here according to the inscription on the back of the photo, snapped this shot.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. 

In 1909, Christodora House acquired the residence.  One of the early settlement houses in New York City, Christodora House was founded in 1897 by Sara Carson and Christine MacColl.  At the time of the purchase, the facility was located on Avenue B.

Christodora House provided services to the immigrant community that had engulfed the district.  Dr. H. Hallarman was on staff here for years to provide medical treatment.  The group offered classes and clubs, like its Poets' Guild of the Christodora House.

Nearly two decades later, on December 18, 1927, The New York Times reported, "The old Christodora House, 310 East Ninth Street, proving inadequate, ground has been broken for a new house, Ninth Street and Avenue B, facing Tompkins Square."  The proposed 16-story structure would include "a swimming pool, gymnasium, classrooms for the music school, club and game rooms," said the article.

While construction of that edifice proceeded, Christodora House continued here.  On May 7, 1929, the Barnard Bulletin announced, "The Poets' Guild of the Christadora [sic] House at 310 East 9th Street is planning a series of national evenings to which they will very gladly welcome any American student who wish to come."  The series started with "a Roumanian Poetry Night," on May 6.

At the time of the series, Christodora House was preparing its move into the new building.  No. 310 East 9th Street was purchased by Dr. Michael Steiner and his wife, Byrdie.  Steiner established his practice in the basement level while he and his wife lived upstairs.

The Italianate areaway railing survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Three decades later, Steiner was still practicing here.  He experienced an unusual incident on the afternoon of April 2, 1960.  Just as he was preparing to close his office at 2:10 that afternoon, a 23-year-old man walked in complaining about a sore foot.  He told Dr. Steiner that "he had a note from his mother," according to The New York Times.  Instead of producing a note, he pulled out a revolver.

"This is a stick-up," he announced, while pulling out a pair of handcuffs.  The Times said, "The hold-up man snapped one cuff around Dr. Steiner's wrist and the other around a steel bar on an operating table."  The young man removed Steiner's $50 wristwatch and rifled the doctor's coat, taking out $90 in cash.  The article said, "Next he asked the physician where he kept his narcotics.  Dr. Steiner said he had none."  

Twenty minutes after the robber fled, Byrdie arrived to find her husband handcuffed to the table.  She called the police, which summoned the Emergency Squad.  They cut the handcuffs with a hacksaw.  In all, said The New York Times, "Dr. Steiner had been handcuffed to the table forty-five minutes."

A renovation completed in 1985 resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and parlor level, one apartment on the second, and another duplex on the third and fourth.  Rather remarkably, other than the replaced stoop ironwork and windows, the vintage house retains much of its 1860s appearance.

photographs by the author

The Hiram Dixon House - 117 East 26th Street

 

In 1851, the family of Edward F. Saxton, a stockbroker, leased the newly-built house at 91 East 26th Street (renumbered 117 in 1867).  One of a long row of identical, high-stooped Italianate residences, it was three stories tall above the basement level and faced in brownstone.  The iron railings of the stoop matched the balcony that fronted the parlor window.  A simple, molded frame embraced the double-doored entrance, and the elliptically arched openings sat upon bracketed sills.  Each of the homes had its own pressed metal cornice with robust scrolled brackets.

The following year, agent Edward B. Kinshimer advertised three of the houses, including No. 91, for rent.  He wrote, "they have baths, ranges, gas &c. and all is in good order.  Rents $750."  The figure would translate to about $2,500 per month in 2025.

Samuel Hanna, a baker, moved his family into the house and would remain through 1854.  Then, on February 19, 1855, Kinshimer advertised 19 East 26th Street for sale, noting its "location genteel."  The ad was answered by the multi-faceted Hiram Dixon.

Dixon had served in the Revolutionary War and was a member of the Veteran Corps of 1776.  He was a member of The American Institute of the City of New York, described by The New York Times in 1860 as "including many of the ablest and best men the City and country afford."  

Although he listed his profession in 1857 as an accountant with the Adams Express Company, he had additionally been "a professor of penmanship for many years," according to The New York Times in 1860.  Groups sought out Dixon for his remarkable penmanship to create elaborate Victorian documents like testimonials and proclamations.  One commission came from the New-York Typographical Society in 1865 when Dixon was hired to pen a "handsome testimonial" for the society's former president, William McCrea.  When the document was exhibited in August, The New York Times remarked, "The penmanship, executed by Mr. Hiram Dixon, of the Adams Express Company, is a rare specimen of art."

Dixon's expertise in calligraphy was so well-known that when the U.S. Government charged Henry Williams with stealing a letter from the mail and forging the signature on a $3,000 note inside, Hiram Dixon was "called as [a handwriting] expert," according to The New York Times on January 26, 1860.

In 1868, Rev. Jesse Ames Spencer moved in.  Born in June 1816, he began working in a printing office at the age of 14.  He graduated from Columbia in 1837 and from the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in 1840.  In 1869, he was elected professor of Greek language and literature at the College of the City of New York.  He and his wife, the former Sarah Jane Elizabeth Loutrel, had seven children.

Rev. Jesse Ames Spencer, (original source unknown)

A prolific author, he published numerous books, many of them about history.  While living here, he finished his four-volume History of the United States from the Earliest Period to the Death of President Lincoln, and published Greek Praxis: Or, Greek for Beginners; and The Young Ruler Who had Great Possessions, and Other Discourses.  

The house was offered for rent in August 1872.  It received a long term resident starting in 1874 with Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton.  Born in October 1848, Hamilton was the grandson of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and of Louis McLane, former Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State, and two-time U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom.  His privileged childhood was reflected in his autobiography, Recollections of an Alienist, in which he recalls, "my Thanksgiving dinner [was] taken yearly with Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the mother of 'Willie' Astor."

Hamilton was a newlywed when he moved into 117 East 26th Street.  He married Florence Rutgers Craig on May 25, 1874.  At the time, he was "connected with the Board of Health" and was "Professor of Nervous Diseases in the Long Island College Hospital," according to The New York Times on June 27 that year.  The couple's only child, Louis McLane Hamilton, was born here in 1876.

Dr. Allen McLane Hamilton, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Dr. Hamilton was an alienist, or what today is known as a psychiatrist.  He specialized in suicide, and the effects of blows to the head to mental health, and often testified in criminal cases.  Despite his expertise in psychiatry, he was appointed by the Health Department as a "sanitary inspector."  That side job earned him $1,600 per year in 1876, or about $47,000 today.  Sanitary inspectors investigated the conditions of tenements and houses within impoverished neighborhoods.

Dr. Hamilton almost assuredly knew Dr. Evert S. Warner, who moved into the house in 1881.  On July 1 that year, The New York Times reported that Evert was one of "a corps of 50 physicians for service among the tenement-house population during the heated term."  Warner was a resident physician at Bellevue Hospital.

On the evening of January 24, 1896, Dr. Warner became involved in a bizarre incident.  At around 8:30, a man knocked on the door of 117 East 26th Street.  "The Doctor was asked to call at the offices of the gas company," said The Sun.  The Consolidated Gas Company's building was nearby at 26th Street and Fourth Avenue (Park Avenue South today).  Half an hour earlier, a drama had begun to play out.

The Sun reported that a closed cab had "rapidly" driven along East 26th Street to the gas company building.  "It was followed by a second cab, which stopped immediately behind it.  Three men jumped out of the second cab and hurried over to the first one."  As one of the men unlocked the door of the gas company's offices and turned on the lights, the others "opened the door of the first cab and lifted out a dead man."  They carried it into the building and the cabs drove away.

Dr. Warner arrived at the office where one man asked, "Is it a fact that this man is really dead?"

The Sun recounted, "Dr. Warner examined the corpse, and replied: 'The body's cold.  He has been dead some time.'"

All four men at the scene, including the dead man, Captain William J. Collins, were employees of the gas company, Collins being its head bookkeeper.  The men had left work that night and got as far as the Brooklyn ferry when Collins became ill.  He ordered a cab to take him back to the gas company building.  Concerned, his coworkers followed.  Collins apparently died en route.

As was common, the Warners took in a roomer.  On June 18, 1897, an advertisement in The New York Times said, "117 East 26th St.--A pleasant, nicely-furnished room in physician's house."

In 1941, the original ironwork and balcony of the house next door was intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1901, the house was home to Dr. Ellice Murdoch Alger and his wife, the former Louise Stevenson.  Alger was an instructor in diseases of the eye at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital.  He was a co-founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness.

The Algers remained until about 1908, when it appears the residence was being operated as a rooming house.  Then, in its April 1913 issue, The Smith College Monthly reported, "Jean Cahoon is running a tea room for business women in New York."  The Sun reported that M. Jean Cahoon had leased the building "for a term of years...for a tea house."  Cahoon called her cafe The Noonday.

The Noonday was relatively short-lived.  The house was leased in 1915 and returned to a rooming house.  It was leased by architect and artist C. Bertram Hartman around 1922.  His daughter, Rosella M. Hartman, was listed as an artist here the following year.

In the late 1920s, writer Dorothy C. Heligman lived here.

Before World War II, the Italianate ironwork was removed.  Other than that loss, the exterior of the former Dixon house is greatly intact.  It is a single family home today.

photographs by the author

George G. Miller's 1931 461 West 44th Street

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

On August 14, 1931, The New York Times reported that the New York Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church had rented the West Side Methodist Church property at 461-463 West 44th Street, just east of Tenth Avenue.  The article mentioned that the congregation, "went out of existence several years ago."  The journalist explained that the lessee, Jere Holding Corporation, "has agreed to begin the erection of a six-story apartment house within thirty days."

The West Side Methodist Church.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The syndicate organized the 461 West Forty-fourth Street Corp., and hired 38-year-old architect George Gottlieb Miller to design the structure.  Perhaps because of the ongoing Depression, his Art Deco design would rely almost exclusively on contrasting brick to create the decorative elements.

The centered, double-doored entrance was flanked with brown brick "stems" that rose to stylized cast stone unfurling ferns.  Above the geometric frame was a cast heraldic plaque.  The variegated beige brick facade of the upper floors was decorated with chevrons, diamonds, and vertical lines, all executed in brown brick.  A decorated parapet took the place of a cornice.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

The completed structure cost $100,000 to construct, or just over $2 million in 2025 terms.  The New York Society of Methodist Episcopal Church initially charged the 461 West Forty-fourth Street Corp. $4,600 per year rent.  Residents, in turn, paid rents starting at $35 per month for the small apartments with "kitchenettes."  (The least expensive monthly rent would translate to about $635 today.)

Among the early residents were newlyweds Helen and Theodore Warady, who moved into a three-room apartment following their wedding in December 1931.  Previous to her marriage, Helen worked in a dance hall.  The couple's marital bliss was extremely short lived.  Only two months later, Theodore moved out, taking a room in the Hotel Alba on West 54th Street.  On February 4, 1932, The New York Times reported that Helen, who was 27 years old, "was found dead yesterday morning in her three-room apartment at 461 West Forty-fourth Street.  She had committed suicide by gas."

Uniform canvas awnings that matched the marquee shielded damaging sunlight and heat.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The building's superintendent was German-born Anna Gunther.  Despite her gender, she was more than capable of handling problems that might arise within the still gritty neighborhood.  The New York Sun said in 1936 that she "has not quite mastered American speech but she is adept in American rough-and-tumble strong-arm methods."  Gunther's street-wise capabilities came into use on December 18, 1936.

Actress Louise Marsh occupied an apartment on the second floor.  While the 22-year-old was trying on a dress in a shop on West 46th Street at around 7:30 that evening, her purse disappeared.  The New York Sun reported, "The saleswoman said a strange girl had been in the shop a few minutes before."  Inside the purse were Louise's keys and "a check bearing her name and address."  Concerned that the thief would ransack her apartment, she borrowed $1 and sped home in a cab.

Sure enough, when she arrived, Anna Gunther said a young woman had gone into her apartment with a key.  Explaining the situation, Marsh ran to find a policeman and "Mrs. Gunther guarded the door."  Dorothy McBride came down the stairs to confront a formidable roadblock.  Gunther told reporters,

She had been taking all things, but then she say to let her out and I tell her no, she is bad girl and must wait for police, and she say she go down fire escape.  So I grab her by both arms and then hit her.  She then run to fire escape and almost jump, but I hold her by arms with her legs dangling.  It seem like half hour before Miss Marsh come with cop, but she say is only ten minutes.

The New York Sun humorously remarked, "The G men can quell a Brunette with tear-gas bombs and sub-machine guns, but thirty-eight-year-old Mrs. Anna Gunther, superintendent at 461 West Forty-fourth street, can subdue a brunette, or even a blonde, with her brawny arms."  Anna explained, "I don't smoke or drink so I'm strong.  I got to be for my work.  I carry out the ashcans when my husband is away.  I would even go after man burglar."

At the station house, Dorothy McBride (who had gathered up  "property worth several hundred dollars") initially said her name was Leisa Dean, before confessing her real name.  The New York Times said the 22-year-old was from Canada and she, "said she had been in this country but a few months."  

While it could be argued that the Depression led Dorothy McBride to a life of crime, Charlotte Hayden could not use that excuse during the World War II years.  The 28-year-old occupied an apartment here on November 19, 1944 when she was arrested for running a bookmaking operation.  As she was taken away, she told police, "I don't mind being arrested, but please don't take out my telephone."  The New York Times reported, "she used the telephone in her apartment at 461 West Forty-fourth Street to receive bets."  

photograph by Anthony Bellov

At the time of Hayden's arrest, 461 West 44th Street had been a cooperative for two years.  There are still 43 apartments in the building, although the Depression year occupants would not recognize its modern updates like laundry facilities and video security.  And despite necessary replacement windows and architecturally sympathetic security doors, George G. Miller's 1931 design survives essentially intact.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

Emery Roth & Sons' 1940 875 Fifth Avenue

 

In 1939, a syndicate called the 877 Fifth Avenue Corporation was formed for the purpose of erecting a modern apartment house at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 69th Street.  In April, it acquired the corner mansion at 877 Fifth Avenue (home to the Ogden L. Mills family for years) and the adjacent residence at 2-4 East 69th Street.  In August 8, The New York Times reported that the group had taken title to 875 Fifth Avenue, "a six-story private dwelling," and within days 876 Fifth Avenue was acquired, completing the parcel.

On July 10, 1939, the Mills mansion was being prepared for demolition.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

On August 28, 1939, Emery Roth & Sons filed plans for "an eighteen-story and penthouse apartment building costing about $800,000," as reported by The New York Times.  The construction cost would translate to just over $18 million in 2025.   

The architects' stark Art Moderne design featured a three-story stone base and 15 stories of beige brick.  Bold, double-height reeding flanked the recessed entrance.  Windows wrapped the corners of the projecting eastern section and those of the corner terraces.  Terrace-creating setbacks began at the 15th floor.

The architects' rendering was released in 1939.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

Construction had barely begun when the first apartment was leased.  On November 5, 1939, The New York Times reported that architect Philip L. Goodwin had leased a nine-room penthouse "with terraces on two levels fronting the Fifth Avenue side of the building."  Goodwin had good reason to move quickly.  "He is having the apartment constructed from his own plans," said the article.  Following Goodwin's lead was builder and real estate operator Louis Adler.  On December 2, The New York Sun reported that he had leased "a large terrace apartment," adding, "The apartment leased has been especially planned to meet Mr. Adler's needs."

When the building opened on August 15, 1940, more than 70 apartments had been rented, according to The New York Sun.  Among the initial tenants were Louis Jaramillo Serra, "operator of sugar plantations in Colombia," according to The New York Times; Henry J. Lesser, president of the International Trading Corporation; Benjamin H. Roth, head of the brokerage firm of B. H. Roth & Co.; and Joseph H. Tooker, president of the Tooker Lithograph Company, and his wife, the former Dora Mather.

The Tookers' brought deep American pedigrees to the building.  Dora was a descendant of Cotton Mather and Increase Mather, and Joseph's ancestors arrived from England in 1707.  A member of the Sons of the American Revolution, among Joseph's ancestors was John Baily, a friend of George Washington.

A colorful resident was singer and motion picture actress Arline Judge.  Born in Connecticut in 1912, she started out in Broadway musicals before meeting film director Wesley Ruggles on a train.  The change meeting resulted in Arline's quickly appearing in six films in 1931.  Ruggles not only set her on a career path in movies, he became the first of her seven husbands.  She divorced him in 1937 and married sportsman and advertising executive Dan Topping that year.  

This 1941 publicity photo was taken while Arline Judge lived at 875 Fifth Avenue.

The couple's marriage was brief.  They divorced in 1940 and Arline moved into 875 Fifth Avenue.  (She would marry Henry J. Topping, Dan's brother, in 1947, two husbands later.)  Arline married James Ramage Addams in 1942 and a two-day auction of her furnishings was held in August.  The New York Times reported:

Some of the furnishings of one of Miss Judge's bedrooms, which brought $289, included two early American style four-post beds, a highboy in the same style, a dressing table and a chaise lounge.  Furnishings of other bedrooms, living room, dining room and other rooms also were sold.

Equally fascinating was model Puk Paaris Gevaert, estranged wife of multi-millionaire Dr. Joseph Cornelis Maria Gevaert, described by The New York Times as "a Belgian capitalist."  Born in 1901, he was president of the Gevaert Company of America, Inc. and from 1939 to 1940 was Belgian Commissioner General to the New York World's Fair.

Born in 1919, Puk Paaris was a former Miss Denmark.  The domestic relationship between her and Gevaert was decidedly rocky.  Sixteen days after the couple met in April 1941, they were married.  Six months later, Puk divorced him.  The New York Sun reported, "she settled for $60,000 plus alimony of $500 a month for two years."  Three weeks later, on November 3, 1941, they remarried.  (Puk later admitted she did not offer to repay the $60,000 settlement.  "She spent it, she said," reported The Sun.)

Puk Paaris and Joseph C. M. Gevaert during an apparently rare non-confrontational moment.  (original source unknown)

The split and reconciliation set a pattern.  On January 26, 1945, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Gevaert...has been separated from her husband twenty-nine times, six of them legal."  Three days before that article, Puk had appeared in State Supreme Court to ask for $50,000 a year alimony and $25,000 counsel fees.  (The annual alimony would equal $871,000 today.)  The New York Sun reported, "They lived on a scale of from $5,000 to $6,000 a month, [and] she testified in support of her claim that it would be unthinkable for her to exist on less than $50,000 a year alimony."

The New York Times reported on January 26, 1945 that Puk Paaris Gevaert won "her suit for separation against her wealthy husband."  Although the terms were not released, Puk said she was "very happy, very happy," asserting that she was now "completely vindicated," and that, "The public now knows what there was to the malicious charges made against me."

Like Arline Judge, Puk Paaris Geraert sold the "modernistic furniture and decorations" of her 875 Fifth Avenue apartment at auction.  Included, reported The New York Times on September 7, 1945, was a "specially built upholstered circular bed."

Less controversial but equally celebrated was stage and screen actor Victor Fred Moore, who moved into an apartment with his second wife, the former Shirley Paige, after their marriage in 1942.  (Moore's first wife, Emma Littlefield, died in 1934.)   Born in 1876, he first appeared on Broadway in 1896.  By now, he was well known for his character roles in motion pictures.

On May 14, 1946, The New York Sun began an article saying, "Victor Moore, famous for his stage portrayals of amiably bewildered men facing baffling situations, appeared in the Mid-Manhattan Court today with his diminutive Pomeranian, Bambi, in a real-life skit."  The actor had been given a summons by a policeman who "said Moore let Bambi frisk about on the East Drive of Central Park near 71st street without a muzzle."

Outside the courtroom, Moore quipped to reporters that the situation reminded him of a sketch he "reenacted in a Ziegfeld Follies movie, called 'Pay the $2.'"  After hearing the case, Magistrate Harry G. Andrews declared, "Two dollars."

"'Pay the $2,' Moore murmured as if deep puzzling memories of the past while he peeled off two $1 bills," recounted The Sun.

Victor Moore, from the collection of the New York Public Library

The following month, Victor Moore's name was in the news for a more serious reason.  On June 3, he and his son, Robert Emmett Moore (who, incidentally, survived several months in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II), set off on a fishing trip on the Long Island Sound on Moore's cabin cruiser.  Fumes that had built up below deck suddenly exploded.  "Most of the boat's deck house was demolished in the blast," reported The New York Times.

Both men suffered second degree burns and cuts, but were released after an hour at the Eastern Long Island Hospital.  Moore told reporters, "There is a possibility the boat can be repaired, but I am not going to do it.  For the last thirty years I have had a fishing cruiser, but I don't think I will ever have another."

Also living here at the time was painter and architectural sculptor Edith Marion Day Magonigle, the widow of architect, author and artist Harold Van Bueren Magonigle, who died in 1935.  (Among Magonigle's designs were the United States Embassy and Consulate in Toyko, the Soldiers' Memorial in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and the Arsenal Technical School in Indianapolis).  Born in 1911, Edith had often decorated the interiors of her husband's buildings with murals.  Among those collaborations were her murals for his Kansas City Liberty Memorial, described by The New York Times as containing, "one of the largest friezes ever undertaken by a woman."

In cooperation with groups like the Salmagundi Club during World War I, she chaired a committee of artists who painted "designation targets" as instructional tools for Army recruits.  "The 'targets' were of particular value in training city men to fix objectives with respect to their surroundings, so they could orient themselves if lost," explained the newspaper.

Edith Day Magonigle at work on a "destination target" mural, Asia.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1920 through 1922, Edith was president of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.  Edith Day Magonigle died at the age of 72 in her apartment here on August 8, 1949.

In 1951, Isaac Liberman, president of Arnold, Constable & Co., his wife, Bertha, and their daughter, Sally, moved into an 18th floor apartment in 875 Fifth Avenue.  Sally Liberman had graduated from Bennington College a year earlier.  Brooks Clark quotes Jonathan Low, Sally's cousin, in Sally's Genius as he recalled holiday dinners with the Libermans:

[They] were festive affairs, with lots of relatives we barely knew and everyone seated around a huge dining room table groaning with fruit, breads, pastries, centerpieces, silver, and crystal.  The walls were hung with expensive old brocades and tapestries.  Dinner was served by servants in formal uniforms overseen by Karl, the Swedish chauffeur-butler.  Their apartment at 875 Fifth Avenue overlooked Central Park and the view, high above the treetops, was always beautiful.

Sally Liberman, who would marry Robert Smith, would go on to be a leader in special education.  She would found the Lab School for children with learning difficulties in 1967 and a professor in the School of Education and Head of the Graduate Program in Special Education at the American University.

Among the Libermans' neighbors in the building were Robert and Zoe Armstrong, who had a five-room apartment on the 11th floor.  As Zoe hurried to dress for an occasion on the evening of August 3, 1953, she was unable to find certain pieces of jewelry.  Running late, she put off a thorough search until the next morning, when she discovered that 14 pieces, including, "diamonds, clips, earrings and watches," as described by The New York Times, were missing.  They were valued by her at $32,500--about $381,000 today.  "Other jewelry worth between $75,000 and $100,000 was found intact in its place," said the article.  Only the maid had been in the apartment that day and police said there were no marks of forced entry.

Two days later, the Armstrongs boarded the French liner Ile de France for Europe.  Zoe was relatively cavalier about the burglary.  "I guess we'll have to do without any baubles," she told a reporter.

On October 16, authorities announced that a "ring of jewel thieves that looted East Side apartments of more than $1,000,000 in jewels and furs" had been captured.  The group included four women who posed as domestics and obtained access to the apartments with keys entrusted to the "maids."  Of Zoe Armstrong's stolen items, one piece, a ruby and diamond platinum wrist watch, was discovered in a pawn shop.

Financier Archibald Moore Montgomery and his wife, the former Eleanor Scully were highly visible residents.  The couple was married on September 21, 1942.  The elegant and well-styled Eleanor was fashion editor of Vogue magazine.  The couple's country home was in Water Mill, Southampton, Long Island.

Archibald Montgomery died in 1965.  Eleanor remained in their apartment, never loosing her patrician bearing nor her independence as she aged.  Although she used a cane after recovering from a broken hip, on April 16, 1982, the "wealthy 73-year-old socialite," as described by the Daily News, left her apartment and took a cab to a garage on 71st Street and First Avenue where she kept her automobile.  "She drove out of the garage a few minutes later," reported the article.

Eleanor Scully Montgomery, Daily News, April 27, 1982

Eleanor was on the way to have dinner at the Meadow Club in Southampton with an old friend, Mrs. R. Townley Paton.  But she never showed up.  Mrs. Paton telephoned Eleanor's Southampton place, but the caretaker said she had not arrived.  What resulted was what The New York Times described as a "13-state missing-person alarm."  

More than a week later, the former Vogue editor was still unaccounted for.  Finally, nine days after her disappearance, an employee of Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn noticed the news coverage of the search.  He "called Mrs. Paton to report that Mrs. Montgomery had been in the hospital all along," reported The Times on April 27.  Eleanor had been involved in an accident.  According to her, she "had asked that Mrs. Paton be notified, but that this was apparently overlooked."  In reporting that she had been found, the Daily News noted that she, "is listed in 'The Blue Book of the Hamptons,' a Long Island social register," and said, "She had lived in Connecticut, Colorado, France and India and was the author of a privately published book about Indian mysticism, 'Tantra Today.'"

At the time of Eleanor Montgomery's mishap, the Libermans still occupied their 18th floor apartment.  Although Arnold, Constable & Co. closed its main location at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in 1975, Isaac Liberman continued to be active.  He became president of the John Forsythe Company and the Liberman Brothers Holding Corporation, as well as president of the Bertha and Isaac Liberman Foundation.  Astoundingly, he was still working when he died in the apartment at the age of 97 on August 3, 1983.  Bertha Bayer Liberman survived him by six years, dying on October 20, 1989 at the age of 93.

More than eight decades after the first tenant moved in, 875 Fifth Avenue maintains its place as one of Manhattan's most prestigious addresses.  A three-bedroom apartment on the ninth floor was recently placed on the market at $66.7 million.

photographs by the author

The 1892 Anthony and Elenora Kimbel House - 320 West 104th Street

 

Working almost exclusively on the Upper West Side, architect Clarence Fagan True was known for his often playful interpretations of historic styles.  In 1891 he was hired by developers T. A. Squier and W. E. Lanchantin to design a row of ten upscale homes on West 104th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  The project, stretching from 304 to 322 West 104th Street, was completed in 1892.

True created a streetscape of undulating bays and turrets, gables and dormers.  Among the three-story-and-attic, Romanesque Revival-style homes was 320 West 104th Street.  Its dogleg stoop rose above an English basement faced with rough-cut stone to a spartan parlor level clad with planar brownstone.  A two-story, three-sided stone oriel sprouted from the beige Roman brick-clad upper floors.  A brick-faced dormer, capped with an angular pediment decorated with a brownstone panel of an urn and vines, poked through the attic roof.  The stone railing of the sleeping porch was decorated with carved scrolls.  But, typical of True's tongue-and-cheek detailing, close inspection reveals that the scrolled ornamentation is composed of fantastic, back-to-back serpents.

The house was initially purchased by Dr. A. W. Lozier, who quickly resold it in March 1893 to Alexander Kimbel and his wife, the former Elenora Haubner.  Kimbel was born in 1854 and Eleanora in 1858.  The couple had three children when they moved in, Eleanore Pauline, who was 14; 12-year-old Frances; and William Anthony, who was five.  Eleanora was pregnant when they purchased No. 320, and Elsie was born that year.  

Also moving into the house was Eleanora's widowed mother, Fredericka S. Haubner.  Charles Haubner, Fredericka's late husband and Eleanora's father, had operated a tannery on West 35th Street.  Fredericka's physical condition was frail, and on September 10, 1894, Eleanora placed an ad in the New York Herald that read, "Wanted--An experienced German nurse for an invalid lady.  320 West 104th st."  Fredericka Haubner died on April 7, 1900 at the age of 72.

In 1904, a group of influential German residents including Carl Schurz, Herman Ridder, and August Zinsser, formed the Germanistic Society of America.  Its object was "to promote the study of knowledge of German civilization in America, and of American civilization in Germany."  Among the initial members was Anthony Kimbel.

It may have been their mutual memberships in the Society that brought Kimbel and August Zinsser together.  In 1914, August and Eleanora rented 320 West 104th Street to Zinsser's son, Dr. Hans Zinsser.

Born in New York City in 1878, Zinsser received his bachelor's and master's degrees and a doctorate in medicine from Columbia University.  He and his wife, the former Ruby Handforth, whom he married in 1905, had two children, Hans Handforth and Gretel (known as Margaret).  In 1910, Zinsser was appointed an associate professor at Stanford University, but the family moved back to New York City in 1913 when Zinsser was hired as professor of bacteriology at Columbia University.  

Dr. Hans Zinsser, from the Wellcome Collection gallery.

Many Americans, especially the lesser educated immigrant population, viewed vaccination warily.  On April 14, 1915, Hans Zinsser very publicly got his typhus shot.  The New York Times reported (in a exhaustingly long sentence):

As conclusive proof of the acceptance of the vaccine as a prophylactic agent, it was further stated, to the amazement of a large number of the physicians present, that Dr. Hans Zinsser, the eminent bacteriologist who holds the professorship of bacteriology of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, who is also President of the New York Pathological Society, and who is now on his way to Serbia as a member of the Rockefeller expedition to take up the fight against typhus, had been inoculated with the protective vaccine prior to his departure.

Zinsser's mother, Marie, died in October 1916.  She left a startling condition in her will concerning the inheritance of her two granddaughters, including Margaret.  Marie Zinsser wanted to ensure that her granddaughters were proficient in homemaking duties.  The Evening World reported, "According to the will, not only must each girl cook an acceptable six-course dinner, but while doing so she must wear a dress of her own making."  Should Margaret and her cousin not comply with the instructions, they would each forfeit $10,000 (about $295,000 in 2025 terms).   Presumably, Margaret completed the task to the approval of the trustees.

When America entered World War I in 1917, Dr. Zinsser was commissioned a major in the Medical Reserve Corps.  He would go on to write more than 200 books and medical articles and, surprisingly, became a published poet, as well.  Among his most influential works was his 1935 Rats, Lice and History.

It was possibly Zinsser's involvement in the war that prompted the family to leave West 104th Street.  An advertisement in The New York Times on March 10, 1918, read, "For Sale or To Let, House, 320 West 104th St., 20 ft. wide, 3-1/2 stories--electric light, 2 baths."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Elenora Haubner died in 1919 and in January 1920 Anthony sold 320 West 104th Street.  The house was converted to unofficial apartments.  

Among the initial tenants was James A. Howard, former vice-president and general manager of the meat packing concern Wilson & Company.  He was described by The National Provisioner as "one of the best known packinghouse men in the United States."  Born in 1860, Howard started in the business in 1880, and retired in 1917.

In 1932, The 4195 Broadway Corp. officially converted 320 West 104th Street to apartments.  Surprisingly, unlike almost all similar renovations, the stoop was preserved.  A subsequent alteration, completed in 1990, resulted in one apartment per floor in the lower three levels and a duplex apartment in the top two floors.

photographs by the author

The Lost American Hotel - Broadway and Barclay Street

 

Lithograph by Antonio Canova, around 1831, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the first decades after the Revolution, three refined, Federal style mansions sat at the northwest corner of Broadway and Barclay Street.  Three stories tall with dormered attics, they enjoyed views of City Hall Park.  The corner house was home to Abijah Hammond, who was prominent in the new government, and two doors away at 231 Broadway was the Philip Hone mansion.  Hone was mayor of New York City from 1826 to 1827.

The three houses, 229 through 231 Broadway, can be seen behind the second tree from the right.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In 1824, renovations to convert the Hammond house to a hotel began.  The attic was raised to a full fourth floor, crowned with a stone balustrade.  The American Hotel opened on May, 2, 1825.

Close inspection of this watercolor, executed by Alexander Jackson Davis in 1826, reveals the change to the former Hammond mansion. from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The hotel included a store in the basement.  An advertisement in the New-York Evening Post on May 20, 1828 offered,

To rent for one or more years, the store No. 2 Barclay street, corner of Broadway, situated under that large building kept by Boardman & Blake, and known as the American Hotel...The above would no doubt prove one of the most lucrative shaving and hair cutting establishments in the city, having a communication with the above hotel in the rear.

A traveler from London was shocked by the egalitarian dining practices here in 1829.  The anonymous writer's reflections were printed in the New-York Evening Post in December that year.  He said in part, 

In the American hotel, a vast table-d'hote was spread every day at 3 o'clock, not only for the guests of the house, but for others who lodged elsewhere; probably not fewer than a hundred persons dine at this daily.  There was also a smaller dinner serve up a little later, at which the guests in the house, who were disposed to make themselves more select, usually assembled.  But this was as they themselves fancy; for parties are free to live in their own rooms as they please, and may be served as in the hotels of England.

By saying "free to live in their own rooms," the writer referred to the English practice of being served meals in their suites.  He considered, "This boarding-house way of life [is] ever too public to be quite comfortable."

The year following the Englishman's visit, the hotel expanded into the house next door.  Its attic was raised and the facade renovated to match.  

The renovations doubled the size of the hotel.  The Philip Hone mansion (right) remained intact.  New-York And Its Environments, 1831 (copyright expired) 

In January 1838, William B. Cozzens purchased the American Hotel.  He would soon host a high-level guest.  During the Presidential campaign of 1840, Vice President Richard Menton Johnson visited New York City.  On June 10, The Evening Post reported that after a diplomatic welcome by the mayor and common council, "The Vice President then retired amidst the deafening plaudits of the people, to partake refreshments at the American Hotel."  Later that night, he was guest of honor at a dinner at the hotel, "which we understand was a rich repast, the proceedings [of which] were conducted with great harmony and spirit," said the article.

At the time of Johnson's visit, however, Cozzens faced stiff competition.  Elegant hostelries like the Astor House and the United States Hotel lured well-heeled travelers.  In 1842 Cozzens began a year-long renovation-redecoration of the hotel.  According to The New York Times, the new furnishings alone cost $50,000--more than $1 million in 2025 terms.  Cozzens's announcement in the New York Herald on June 20, 1843 read:

Having completed the repairs and alterations of the American Hotel, and the adjoining house (which I have annexed to it) I respectfully solicit from my friends and the public a continuation of their patronage.  The situation is as good as that of any similar establishment in the city.  It fronts on the Park, and the Fountain is immediately opposite.  The house has been newly completed, and everything thoroughly repaired.

The Mexican-American War began in April 1846.  The following year, on May 7, 1847, the city turned out to celebrate 16 victories, including those at "Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista and Vera Cruz," as reported by the New York Herald.  The newspaper said there were "two hundred thousand human beings in the streets."  The buildings along Broadway were "illuminated," or decorated with flags and banners.   The American Hotel was "splendidly illuminated," said the article and "an excellent band of music played several enlivening airs during the evening, and added much to the festivities of the occasion."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

On June 17, 1853, The New York Times reported on the "extensive conflagration at the American Hotel."  The fire broke out at around 4:00 in the afternoon.  "In the Hotel, where the fire was raging, the utmost confusion prevailed."  Guests attempted to remove their trunks and other baggage, clogging the stairways and halls.

In the chaos, at least two waiters were caught "plundering the rooms," said the article.  Some guests took advantage of the unmanned barroom, taking, "liberal draughts upon the liquor without asking the aid of the barman."  The Times said they "were wandering about the house, singing, dancing, proposing the proprietor's health in maudlin speeches, and otherwise indecently misconducting themselves."  

Their cavalier attitude was highly foolhardy.  The article said that by 5:30, the two top floors "were completely gutted," adding, "Of the amount of damage done to the building by fire and water we cannot form an estimate."  The New York Times dismally opined, "It is not likely, therefore, that, as a hotel, it will ever be opened again."

The hotel was repaired, but it was no longer fashionable.  The more upscale hotels were located farther north by now.  The American Hotel staggered along, helped financially by stores and offices renting portions of the building.  Then, on April 6, 1866, another fire broke out.  This time the entire building was gutted.  On April 12, the Evening Post reported, "A part of the Barclay street wall of the old American Hotel, at the corner of Broadway and Barclay street, which building was burned a few days ago, fell shortly before three o'clock this afternoon."  

The replacement building and the other structures on the block were demolished in 1910 to make way for the Woolworth Building, completed in 1913.