George B. Post's 1886 Livingstone - 206-208 East 9th Street

 

In 1885, seven years after he designed the magnificent Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, George Browne Post filed plans for a much different project--a "flat" building for James Thomson at 206-208 East 9th Street, next to the diagonally-running Stuyvesant Street.  Completed in 1886, Post's Renaissance Revival design was splashed with elements of the popular Queen Anne style.  Six bays wide and five stories tall, Post trimmed the red brick facade with nearly matching terra cotta.  Molded terra cotta bands between the windows suggested capitals to the brick piers.  Each opening was crowned with an arch, its tympanum filled with ornate Renaissance decoration.  The corbel table of the complex terra cotta cornice took the form of shells.

Most striking, perhaps, is the bold entranceway.  To maintain symmetry, Post balanced the double-doored entrance with a window separated by an elaborate Renaissance Revival, terra cotta pilaster and connected it all with a large terra cotta arch filled with delicate, leafy decorations.  A Queen Anne-style scroll announces the address (the gold paint was added relatively recently).

There were ten apartments of seven rooms in the building, two per floor.  Rents ranged from $1,160 to $1,290 per month by today's conversions.  An advertisement in the New York Herald read, "The Livingstone, 206 and 208 East 9th St.--Very desirable Apartments at low rents; all improvements."  

Residents were middle- to upper-middle class.  An erudite resident, who signed her advertisement in the New-York Tribune on February 26, 1891 as "R. M.," wrote, "Educated lady has some hours disengaged, mornings or afternoons from 2 till 4; German, English, French, art, needlework, music, grown children or to a lady."

The apartments were spacious enough that some residents used them both for living and working.  An advertisement in The World on October 16, 1892 read:

Art Classes, painting, drawing, illustrating, designing, home decorations, all branches; lessons daily and evenings; eminent European teachers, Prof. and Mrs. Champney, principals Rembrandt Art School, 206 and 208 East 9th st.

Another resident who operated from his apartment was John F. Victory.  He published The Postal Record here starting around 1892, and the following year was secretary of the National Association of Letter Carriers, which listed its official address at 206 East 9th Street.  In 1893, he and his wife, the former Alice Dauphin, welcomed a son, John F. Victory, Jr.

Geo. P. Rowell & Co's American Newspaper Directory, 1893 (copyright expired)

The younger Victory joined the U. S. Patent Office as a clerk in 1908.  A friend of Wilbur and Orville Wright, when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was organized in 1915, he was its first employee.  He would become its secretary in 1921 and executive secretary in 1948.  

John F. Victory, Jr. on January 1, 1922, Great Images in NASA

When NASA was organized in 1958, Victory would serve as special assistant to administrator T. Keith Glennan.

Born in Puerto Rico, Antonio Velez Alvarado moved to New York City in 1888.  He lived here in 1898 when the Spanish-American War ended and America claimed the island of Puerto Rico as a territory on October 18.  Three days later, Alvarado attempted to register to vote.  The New York Journal & Advertiser reported that he "was denied the right to do so" when the official insisted on seeing his naturalization papers.  The newspaper explained that Alvarado:

...argued that he needed neither to show nor to have naturalization papers and that it was only necessary for him to satisfy the conditions of the ballot law as to the length of residence here--at least a year in the State, four months in the county and thirty days in the election district--which conditions he could meet.

He said he became an American "last Tuesday, October 18, when the American flag was raised over the palace and other public buildings in San Juan, signifying the completed occupation of the island by this country."  Alvarado turned to Tammany Hall, pleading his case to the Law Committee.  Impressed with his argument, attorney Rollin M. Morgan escorted him downtown to Corporation Counsel Whalen.  The two attorneys consulted "history, constitutions and law books for several hours."  Then a telegram was sent to the Secretary of State at Albany.

Antonio Velez Alvardo, New York Journal & Advertiser, October 22, 1898 (copyright expired)

As he waited for an answer, Alvarado asserted to a reporter from The New York Journal & Advertiser, "If I am not a citizen of Spain, and I certainly am not, I must certainly be an American."  The newly-minted citizen won his battle.  The next day, Congressman William Sulzer told the newspaper, "Porto Ricans were made Americans by the act of war.  They can vote here next month."  The Alvarado case had established an important legal precedent.

At the time, Henry Peck and Heinrich Trautman shared an apartment.  Luckily for Trautman, the roommate arrangement saved his life.  On December 18, 1899, the New York Journal & Advertiser reported succinctly, "If Henry Peck had been five minutes late in arriving at his room, at No. 206 East Ninth street, yesterday, Heinrich Trautman would have been suffocated.  The gas had been turned on by accident."

Interestingly, 206-208 East 9th Street (the name Livingstone was dropped a few years after its opening) was racially integrated as early as the World War I years.  When Alexander Dujat was tried for bigamy on October 28, 1918, the Brooklyn Standard Union reported, "The first witness to-day was the Rev. Matthew M. Wilson, colored, of 206 East Ninth street, Manhattan."

Residents of 206-208 East 9th Street rarely prompted negative press, but that was not the case in the summer of 1924 when Albert Blumberg faced serious charges: vehicular homicide.  On August 26, the New York Telegram and Evening Mail reported that he was held, "for further examination in connection with [an] automobile killing."  He had fatally hit six-year-old Alexander Chambers.

As was the case in 1886, there are ten apartments in the building.  Its exterior appearance is remarkably intact, but without landmark protection, the continued preservation of this striking example of one of New York's most important 19th century architects is uncertain.

photographs by the author