Beyond the rear yards of the Houston Street houses were the elegant homes on Bleecker Street. Angelica Gilbert, perhaps, hoped to draw clientele from those wealthy families. She established Miss Angelica Gilbert's Boarding & Day School in 90 Houston Street. An advertisement in the New-York Evening Post on September 2, 1830 described the school as being, "where with competent assistance, children are taught the rudiments, and young ladies the highest branches of a sound and elegant education." And, indeed, Angelica Gilbert's students came from some of Manhattan's most illustrious families, including the Rhinelanders, Kipps, and Wards.
As early as 1850, the 18-foot-wide house had multiple occupants. Listed here that year were Archibald Murray, a carver; and two butchers, William Odell who worked in the Essex Market, and George Vale, whose store was on Stanton Street.
Produce merchant Peter Lisse and his wife, Ernestine, were here in 1853. Apparently boarding with them was Francis Burke, who operated a liquor store or saloon.
Following Peter Lisse's death in 1854, Ernestine took over his business, listing her profession as "vegetables" in the Union Market. She also now accepted more boarders. Listed here in 1857, along with Francis Burke, were cabinetmaker John Hoffman; upholsterer George Stetter; and Simon Lampert, a "segarmaker."
Boarding here in 1870 was Margarette P. Luthy. On June 10 that year, Walter L. Butler arrived at the house and handed her a letter from her good friend, Fannie C. Shattuck, who lived on Second Avenue. In it Fannie apologized for her handwriting, saying, "I am very nervous," and explained, "When I see you again I will be a married woman." The letter said that she and the man bringing the letter were to be married at 3:00 that day, and asked to borrow some of Margarette's things for the ceremony. The letter said in part:
You know what I mean--your collar and undersleeves--and if you will oblige me so much will you loan me a pair of earrings and any little thing that you would think would do for me to get married in, and I will take the best of care of them, and would like to see you on to-morrow morning without fail. Please send by my intended anything you will loan me, as I have not much time.
Margaretta Luthy gave Fannie Shattuck's "intended" a pair of gold and coral earrings, a breast pin, a lace collar, handkerchief, a "chemisette and a pair of undersleeves." The items were valued by Margarette at $68, or nearly $1,750 in 2026 terms.
When the blushing bride did not arrive the next day, Margarette investigated. Fannie C. Shattuck was not married, nor had she been engaged. And the letter's handwriting was unfamiliar not because Fannie had been nervous, it was because it was written by Walter Butler.
As it turned out, Butler was the ne'er-do-well nephew of Civil War General Benjamin F. Butler. He was tracked down and arrested in Yorkville on June 24. The New York Herald reported, "Butler attempted to cut his throat before he was taken from the house." He pleaded guilty and sentenced to two years' and six months' hard labor.
Owner J. L. Brooks made significant changes to the building in 1871. On February 11, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that he would transform the "two and a half story...second-class dwelling" by raising the attic to a full third floor "with Mansard roof to be added." The building would be enlarged to the rear with an eight-foot deep extension, as well. Equally important, The New York Times noted, "store to be made in front."
Brooks's contractor transformed the Federal-style house to a Second Empire-style store-and-apartment building. A cast iron storefront was installed, and a stylish mansard with three prominent dormers brought to the building up to date.
via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
West Houston Street was becoming increasingly commercial, and the neighborhood in general was filling with immigrants. Among Brooks's initial tenants was Pierre Fagani. He was arrested on June 10, 1872, charged "with having stolen a counterfeit $20 bill, and afterward attempted to pass it on a poor shoe-maker," as reported The New York Times.
The ground floor became home to Joseph Rath's beer saloon. It changed hands over the subsequent years. By 1879, it was run by Adolph Luttig.
Several of the tenants continued to be on the wrong side of the law. Around midnight on March 5, 1881, resident James McDonnell and five other thugs attacked Alfred Speanot on South Fifth Avenue. Speanot tried to escape on Bleecker Street, but the three overtook him, knocked him down and beat him while trying to snatch his watch. Police Officer Scullion came on the scene and while three of the men fled, Scullion captured the others, including James McDonnell. When asked in court what they had to say, one of the prisoners explained that Speanot, "struck them first."
Pierre Soulan, who lived here with his wife in 1888, worked as a waiter in the exclusive Delmonico restaurant. A native Frenchman, The Evening World said he was "well connected in his native country." In October that year, Soulan's eyes "began to trouble him," according to The Evening World. On the advice of his physician, he went to the Eye and Ear Infirmary where an operation was performed.
The surgery was not only unsuccessful, it left Soulan in significant pain. A second operation was proposed. The Evening World said that since the first procedure, Soulan "has been more or less deranged." At 5:00 on the morning of December 5, Mrs. Soulan called her husband to breakfast, saying it was nearly time to go to work. She then noticed blood on the bedclothes. Soulan, who was unconscious from a loss of blood, had slit his wrists with a razor while still in bed. The Sun said, "It is supposed that the prospect of another operation was too much for him." Amazingly, at Bellevue Hospital it was said he would recover. (He would, however, now face charges of attempted suicide.)
The Morris family occupied rooms here in 1894. On the evening of July 4 that year, 17-year-old Frank Morris and his 14-year-old friend, William Laugin, who lived around the corner, were setting off firecrackers on South Fifth Avenue between Bleecker and Houston Streets. They would be witnesses of a brutal crime.
Maggie Davis and her boyfriend, George Washington Gibbin, had been drinking that night. The two separated and, suspicious, Maggie followed George. The New York Herald reported that she "saw him talking to another woman." She went home, retrieved a large butcher knife, and went out looking for Gibbin. She found him near the spot where Morris and Laugin were lighting their firecrackers. Frank Morris turned just in time to see Maggie, who had sneaked up behind Gibbin, raise the knife. He yelled a warning to the unsuspecting man, but it was too late. The New York Herald said, "As he did the weapon descended three times in rapid succession. Gibbon was stabbed in the back, in the chest, and in the right thigh."
Morris and Laugin were in court to testify. While Maggie Davis (who was "well known to the police as a general hard character") insisted she had not done the stabbing, the New York Herald said, "Morris and Laugin both contradicted her."
In the meantime, the ground floor space at 90 West Houston Street became J. S. Rowley's Restaurant in 1893. The patrons of the all-night operation were not necessarily upstanding citizens.
Among the regular customers was Alice Walsh, whom The Evening World described as a "poor outcast." She entered the restaurant at around 12:30 on the morning of April 21, 1895. According to the cook, Michael C. McNamara, a few minutes later four men entered, one of them saying, "There she is."
Alice was "much disturbed" according to McNamara, "and then became very angry when the men began to abuse her for having deserted them." When one of the men threatened her, Alice "retorted by showering vile epithets upon him, after the fashion of the women of the street."
One of the men told Alice to come with them to the Yorktown Hotel.
"Not on your life," she answered.
"We'll make you," said one of the men.
"No you won't," said Alice, and she pulled out a long, steel hairpin and threatened, "I'll stick you with this, --- you, and I mean what I say."
Finally, at around 1:55 a.m., all five left. McNamara said as they headed toward Thompson Street, he could still hear them "talking loudly and making threats." Later that morning, Alice Walsh's body was found "in the squalid hallway at 148 Thompson Street." She had been kicked and beaten and then fatally stabbed in the abdomen.
A month later, on May 18, 32-year-old Tony Murphy was "ejected from Rowley's restaurant by Walter Patrick Henry," as reported by The Evening World. The barman was less than gentle in removing the unwanted customer. Murphy was found unconscious on the sidewalk outside at 5:00 that morning, bleeding from the head. The newspaper reported that he was hospitalized with a "probable fracture of the skull." Walter Henry was arrested.
Pierre Soulan was not the last of the tenants here to attempt suicide. Jacob Froelich, a tinsmith, lived here in 1899 when he became infatuated with another resident, Mrs. Taylor. On November 17, he swallowed Paris Green, a rodenticide, because Mrs. Taylor "did not look favorably upon his suit," reported the New York Herald. The article noted that he had done this before, "but cried out in time." It added, "He will not die this time either."
More successful was Louis Guillemot, who lived here with his wife and two children in 1900. The 24-year-old worked as a collector for an insurance company--calling on clients and receiving their premiums. Each morning he would meet his supervisor at a grocery store on Macdougal Street to report and turn over his collections.
On the morning of February 7, 1900, he was in trouble. He had used $15 of his previous day's collection (about $600 today) for personal purposes. Just before his supervisor arrived, he mentioned his plight to someone in the store, then walked into the rear room and shot himself in the chest.
The store space here became home to M. Martin & Co., commercial plumbers, by 1916. A delicatessen occupied the space during the Depression years, and in 1964 it was converted to a luncheonette. At the same time, the upper floors were converted to apartments, two per floor.
Among the tenants in 1986 was Ruth Polsky, a booking agent for clubs and discotheques. On the night of September 8 that year, she was outside the Limelight on Sixth Avenue when a driver for a car service ran a red light and smashed into a taxicab. The taxi spun out of control and careened into five people on the sidewalk, including Ruth Polsky, who was killed.
The ground floor space became Zinc Bar in 1993. In reporting its opening, The Villager said, "Along with espresso, they provide blues and jazz and some Brazilian music." Zinc Bar remained here until July 2008. A coffee house, Moka Moment, occupies the space today.
photograph by the author
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