The Arnet Seaman House - 51 Charles Street

 

photograph by the author

Sir Peter Warren's country estate engulfed 300 acres in the 18th century.  By the time Abraham Van Nest died in the former Warren house, known as "The Manse," in 1864, the mansion sat within just a single city block, bounded by Bleecker, Charles, Perry and West Fourth Streets.

Developers quickly swooped in.  The Van Nest block was leveled, building lots plotted, and houses erected.  Oddly, in a nod to the respected Van Nest family, the northern side of Charles Street between West Fourth and Bleecker Streets was named Van Nest Place.  (Adding to the confusion of only the northern side of the block being so named, it was routinely spelled Vannest, Vanness or Van Ness Place.)

In 1866, George Starr began construction of a brick-faced mansion at the northwest corner of West Fourth Street and Van Nest Place.  Completed in 1867, the Italianate-style home was three bays wide and three stories tall above a brownstone basement.  A stone stoop rose to the parlor floor where, most likely, a cast iron balcony fronted the floor-to-ceiling windows.  The elliptically arched openings originally wore molded eyebrows and the doorway would have been impressive--adorned with scrolled brackets and a pediment or similar treatment.

Arnet Seaman and his wife, the former Mary Anna Rhodes Riffey, purchased 1 Van Nest Place.  Arnet, who operated a brick business, was born in 1814 and Mary in 1821.  The couple had surviving children: John Henry and Ambrose.  A daughter, Jenny, had died in childhood and the eldest son, William A., had died at the age of 24 in 1866--the year before his parents bought the Van Nest Place.  The family maintained a country home in Tarrytown, New York.

Even affluent families leased unneeded space in their homes and shortly after moving in, on February 22, 1867, the Seamans advertised:

A very pleasant room and bedroom to let, separately or together, to gentlemen or gentleman and wife, with Board; house new, with every convenience.

"Every convenience" in 1867 would have included gas lighting and indoor plumbing.

By 1873, John Henry, who was now 24 years old, had joined his father's business.  It had expanded and now offered "masons' building materials" with at least two locations.

The Real Estate Record, March 13, 1880 (copyright expired)

Ambrose, most likely, would have joined them.  But on August 31, 1875, the 19-year-old died "suddenly," as worded by the New York Herald.  The term implied an accident.  Ambrose's funeral was held in the parlor, and his body interred at Tarrytown.

Arnet and Mary Seaman moved permanently to Tarrytown around 1887.  When he died there on October 23, 1893, the New-York Tribune remarked, "His estate is estimated at $500,000."  The figure would translate to about $18 million in 2026.

No. 1 Van Nest Place became home to the family of Alderman John Cavanagh.  His wife and young adult children were terrified by an incident that took place on the night of December 18, 1888 while Cavanagh was not home.

At around 8:30, a man climbed the stoop and "rang the door-bell repeatedly," as reported by The Evening Post.  Mrs. Cavanagh looked out of a window and did not recognize the stranger.  "He shouted to her to open the door, and when she ordered him to leave, he used bad language and kicked at the door," said the article.

He then descended the stoop and went to the basement door, kicking it so hard that one of the panels caved in.  As he was doing so, the Cavanagh's daughter hurried down the stoop to find a policeman.  She was seen, however.  The intruder ordered her to stop and chased after her.  The terrified girl ran into Policeman Nash at Perry and Greenwich Streets, who arrested Oscar Hatfield.  At the station house he asserted that he was "the United States Consul at Batavia, Java."

The next morning Hatfield told the court that he was very sorry, saying that "he drank three bottles of porter [ale] yesterday afternoon, and did not have the slightest recollection of what he did last evening."  The Cavanagh's son told the judge "that his mother was ill at home from the fright she received last night."  Hatfield was jailed for a month.  

The Cavanagh family left in 1883, and on October 16 that year, The World reported, "The new club-house of the recently organized United States Navy Club, at No. 1 Van Nest place, was thronged yesterday with blue-jackets who are on shore leave, and who are keen to appreciate the social advantage offered by the new organization."

The United States Navy Club, said the article, was the only club for enlisted men in the country.  It said, "The club-house is a four-story brick high-stoop house, and it is well furnished throughout."  Calling it "a handsome house," the New York Herald said it was "right in the heart of the 'old Greenwich village.'"  It explained that in addition to club activities, the house would be the "residence and home for enlisted men serving on board ships of the United States Navy."

It would be a short-lived venture here.  By March 1894, the club had rented and moved into a house on Sands Street in Brooklyn.  

No. 1 Van Nest Place was leased that year and again in 1897.  The latest lessee, W. D. Phillips, rented it as an income property.  His first tenant was Frank Rosevelt Starr.

Born in 1866, Starr was in the real estate brokerage business with his brother, Edward Seaman Starr.  Despite his relatively young age, Frank Starr was suffering from rheumatism and was being treated by a Dr. Ormsby.

On April 7, 1897, the doctor visited the house.  He found Starr's bedroom "full of gas and the man dead," as reported by the New York Journal and Advertiser.  The newspaper titled the article, "Gas Ends a Broker's Life."  His funeral was held in the parlor on April 9.

Starr was followed in the house by the family of Frank Williams.  The family's country home was in Richmond, Maine.  Their affluence was reflected in the wedding of their only daughter, Florence Irene, to I. Latimer Lawrence in the First Presbyterian Church on January 15, 1902.  The New York Times reported, "Over 500 guests were invited."

The property was sold at auction in November 17, 1912.  The announcement in The Sun described it as, "N.W. Cor. West 4th & Charles Sts. (Known as 1 Van Nest Place)" for sale.  It detailed it as "a 3 story and basement brick and brownstone private dwelling containing 10 rooms, 1 bath and 2 toilets."  In reporting on the sale, The New York Times commented on the confusing address, saying that the city had already given up on Van Nest Place:

The name still remains in the city directory among the list of streets, but it has been discarded by the city officials and the Tax Department, instead of recognizing the row of old-fashioned homes on the north side of Charles Street as 1 to 18 Van Nest Place, acknowledges their existence for taxable purposes as 55 to 89 Charles Street.

The owners and residents of 1 Van Nest Place, however, continued to use that address.  When Elena E. Goodale sold it to William E. Mullholland in November 21, it was still described as a "three-story dwelling."  But within two years, it had been converted to unofficial apartments.  An advertisement in The New York Times on October 5, 1923 offered three apartments.  One of them was described as "2 rooms and bath, studio, all improvements, private street entrance."  (Two entrances were carved into the West Fourth Street side.)  The two others were described: "5 rooms and bath, housekeeping and non-housekeeping; housekeeping suitable for doctor or dentist."  The term, "housekeeping," meant the apartment had a kitchen.

A subsequent alteration in 1933 removed the stoop and lowered the front entrance, now with a Greek Revival inspired frame, to below grade.  There were now four floor-through apartments in the building.

The original high stoop and entrance details of 1 Van Nest Place would have been similar to others further down the block.  The New York Times June 7, 1936

Finally, after the grumbling of local residents, letter carriers and delivery men, and the city's indifference to the name, on June 7, 1936, The New York Times reported, "The nomenclature Van Next Place will be eliminated; Charles Street incorporating same."  The corner structure was renumbered 51 Charles Street.

Among the more colorful tenants over the subsequent decades was Marion Abt Bachrach.  Starting in 1947, she was the public relations director of the Communist Party of the United States.  Like most visible Communist Party members, she was a target of the Government's campaign known commonly as the Red Scare.  In 1951, she was indicted with 20 other "second-string" Communist leaders.  However, when it was revealed that she was suffering from cancer, her trial was canceled.  

Marion Abt Bachrach's 1951 FBI mugshot.

When Marion Abt Bachrach did not die, Congress appointed a physician to examine her.  In 1955, he deemed her condition "satisfactory" to stand trial, although, according to The New York Times, "others disagreed."  She was tried in Federal Court in New York City on "charges of conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence."  Perhaps surprisingly, she was acquitted in 1956.  She was still living at 51 Charles Street on October 17, 1957 when she succumbed to cancer in the Manhattan General Hospital at the age of 57.

Bachrach's landlord had been Norma Starobin.  After owning and living in 51 Charles Street "for many years," according to The New York Times, she sold it in August 1967 for $90,000--about $845,000 today.

Although the stoop was gone, the window lintels survived in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As some point after 1940, the details of the windows were shaved off.  Otherwise, little has changed outwardly to 51 Charles Street since the 1938 conversion.