Sewing Women, Socialists and Theater - 85 East 4th Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

Developers sometimes lobbied the Board of Aldermen to rename a block or two upon which their new upscale homes sat.  Their goal was to create the sense of exclusivity.  In 1836, Longworth's American Almanack noted, "Part of Fourth [Street], between the Bowery and Avenue 2d, has the soubriquet of Albion-place."

Among the fashionable homes on the block was 411 Albion Place, aka 411 Fourth Street.  Erected around 1834, it was two-and-a-half stories tall above an English basement.  Clad in Flemish bond brick, its Federal design included a peaked roof punctured with two dormers.  (The address would be a moving target for letter carriers and visitors.  It was changed to 427 Fourth Street in 1850, and to 85 East 4th Street in 1864.)

Hanna Brown lived here as early as 1836.  Born in 1774, she was the widow of Adam Brown.  Hanna had moved here from 38 Rivington Street.  After living here alone with her servants several years, she began suffering what The Evening Post would call, "a lingering illness."  She died at the age of 65 on December 16, 1839.  Two days later, a one-line notice appeared in the Morning Herald:

The widow of the late Adam Brown, a highly respected and deeply lamented lady, will be buried today, from 411 Fourth street.

(The fact that only the Adam Brown's name, not Hanna's, was mentioned in her funeral notice would be highly surprising and offensive today.)

Four months later, on April 21, 1840, Hanna Brown's things were auctioned in what today we would call an estate sale.  Auctioneer E. H. Ludlow described, "splendid fashionable furniture," damask and silk window curtains, and bronze candelabras among the offerings.

The house next became home to the Graydon family.  Born in County Tyrone, Ireland around 1781, John Graydon ran a "tingood" business on Beaver Street.  He married Elizabeth Whitley around 1803 and the couple had nine children, at least five of whom lived with their parents.  John W. was an attorney; Joseph and Samuel ran a dry goods business on William Street, William was listed in directories as "merchant" at 61 Cedar Street, and Jane Graydon Sherrerd was the young widow of Archibald Sherrerd, who died  in 1836, three years after their marriage.  The Graydon family's country home was in Ridgewood, New Jersery.

It was likely the Graydon's who replaced the Federal style doorway (which was now falling from fashion) with an up-to-the-minute Greek Revival example.  Engaged, fluted Doric columns upheld a substantial entablature and cornice.

The family received an unexpected package at the basement door on June 4, 1855.  The New York Times reported, "The practice of dropping babies has become almost a mania of late in the City.  Monday evening there was one found at No. 427 Fourth-street, and taken to the Almshouse."

It was likely the substantial Grayson population within the house that prompted its enlargement in 1857.  The attic was demolished and a third and fourth floor erected.  Construction was completed in 1858.  The alterations included a fashionable Italianate cornice.

John Graydon died in the Ridgewood house on January 29, 1864 at the age of 83.  His funeral was held in the Fourth Street house three days later.

In 1867, Hannah Hosier operated 85 East 4th Street as a boarding house.  Although well-to-do businessmen, like John D. Billings, a lawyer, and piano maker Edington B. Decker, boarded here in 1867; Hannah seems to have catered to college students.  In 1869, six Columbia University students lived here.

Jane E. Carman took over the operation of the boarding house in 1871.  On May 18, the New-York Tribune reported, "The Boarding-House for Sewing Women has been removed from No. 262 East Broadway to No. 85 East Fourth-st."  The house doubled as the headquarters of the Young Woman's Aid Association.

On December 16, 1875, The New York Times reported that Michael Ryan had purchased the house for $14,000 (or about $424,000 in 2026).  He and his wife Agnes operated it as a boarding house and his tenants were highly varied.  Living here in 1879 were the Gantzberg family--Albert was a weaver, Bertha a nurse, and Julius a teacher--as well as Charles Laroche, who was an actor; physician Alexander Weldmann; and a tax collector and two clerks.

The Ryans sold 85 East 4th Street to Charles F. and Marie Kremer in February 1883 for $15,500.  They converted the basement level to the Second Avenue Club.  The Documents of the Senate of the State of New York described it in 1887 as a "club and coffee house."

Two years later, in March 1889, the Kremers leased the house to Paul Wilzig.  By then, the once refined neighborhood was Manhattan's center of the Socialist movement.  Within days of Wilzig's signing the lease, on March 30, 1889 the Record & Guide reported that he had commissioned architect H. W. Fabian to renovate the interiors at a cost equal to $180,000 today.  

The result was Witzig's Hall, also known as Witzig's Assembly Rooms.  It quickly became a favorite meeting space.  On June 23, 1891, for instance, The Evening Post reported, "The Convention of the International Machinists' Union of North America was continued this morning at Witzig's Assembly Rooms."  And on August 31, the New-York Tribune reported, "A meeting of the new Socialist Central Union was held at No. 85 East Fourth-st. yesterday morning, and it was permanently organized under the name of the New-York City Federation of Labor."

The Kremers leased 85 East 4th Street to Robert L. Worm in July 1908.  He converted it to Casino Hall, while continuing to cater to labor and Socialist groups.  On July 30, 1909, the New-York Tribune reported, "A benefit concert and entertainment for the unemployed of this city will be given this evening in Casino Hall, No. 85 East 4th street, under the auspices of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association."

Labor disputes in the early 20th century often involved violence.  In 1910, the Cloakmakers' Union went on strike.  Rather than march in the picket lines, five workers went to Hunter, New York where they found employment.  It did not sit well with union bosses.  The New York Times reported, "When the information was received by the union, men were sent to Hunter to bring back the five members."

Herman Liberwitz was one of those workers.  When the train pulled into Grand Central Station, three of his comrades were able to escape.  Liberwitz and the other man were not so lucky.  They were brought 85 East 4th Street and beaten by Morris Stupniker, described by the newspaper as a labor union "strong-arm man."  Herman Liberwitz was "beaten over the head with a club and died of a fractured skull the next day," reported The New York Times.  The other man was "badly beaten."

Terrified of "starkers," (the lingo for a union goon who enforced union rules, patrolled picket lines and dealt with strike breakers), workers refused to give any information to authorities.  It would be four years before detectives got enough evidence to arrest Stupniker and union vice-president Max Sigman for Liberwitz's murder in April 1914.  

A persistent Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Lord was not done.  A year later, on May 12, 1915, The New York Times reported that he "went out last night to arrest east side gangsters, who, it is alleged, have been hired to do 'strong arm work,' and even commit murder."  Indictments against 34 men, "eleven of whom were gangsters, and twenty-three labor union officials in the textile trade," had been returned. 

In the meantime, Casino Hall continued to be a popular meeting place.  On June 29, 1914, an obviously unsympathetic New-York Tribune reported, "A number of groups of anarchists and other radical people met yesterday at Casino Hall, 85 East Fourth st."

Later that year, The New York Times reported that the Anarcho-Syndicalist League of Greater New York had been formed here.  "The symbol of the new league is a representation of the pyramid and mailed-fist urn in which were placed the ashes of Caron, who was killed when a bomb exploded in his flat."

On August 4, 1921, the New York Herald reported that B. H. Cohen had leased 85 East 4th Street for 21 years.  The article said he "will remodel it into a catering building."  Cohen initially kept the name Casino Hall.  It also continued to cater to Socialist groups.

On December 16, 1922, for instance, The Daily Worker, published by the Community Party, reported on the "fifth evening of the big six-day Russian bazaar" in Casino Hall.  That night would include a concern by composer and pianist I. Arnstein.

By 1927, the name of the venue was Royal Hall.  On December 2, 1929, The New York Times reported, "The injection of communism into a mass meeting of nearly 300 subway construction workers precipitated a clash yesterday afternoon in Royal Hall."  The article said, "chairs and water classes were used as weapons as scores of workers belabored each other."  Although no arrests were made, there were "plenty of black eyes and bruised noses, and several men were cut by chair rungs."

Another name change came by the early 1930s.  On May 5, 1934, The Daily Worker reported on a "gala entertainment and party for the benefit of the victims of Austrian fascism, at Palm Casino, 85 East Fourth Street."  (Reportedly, the Palm Casino was, in fact, a speakeasy owned by Italian-born gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano.)

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

After decades of catering to Socialist and labor groups, a portion of 85 East 4th Street became home to the United Ukrainian Organizations of the United States around 1939.  

The space that had seen raucous meetings and celebrations for decades became a theater at midcentury.  On May 7, 1955, The New York Times reported that actor Will Geer would sponsor a tribute to the late Vernon Rice "at the Folksay Theatre, 85 East Fourth Street."  The venue became the Downtown Theatre in 1956, to the East End Theatre around 1960.

On January 16, 1965, the New York Amsterdam News reported that the American Theatre for Poets had leased the East End Theatre, saying it "plans to remodel the theatre, enlarging the stage, and installing special new lighting and sound systems."  Once again, the theater was renamed.  On August 21, the New York Amsterdam News reported that Arise, Arise premiered "at the newly named Cinematheque East Theatre."

In the meantime, the rest of the building was known as Ukrainian Hall, home to the American-Ukrainian Heritage Society and the East Side Forum.  Appearing in the Forum in September 1967, was editor-journalist James Aronson who spoke on "1968: New Politics and Revolution?"

Less political events, of course, were held here.  On May 3, 1973, The Daily World reported on the Spring Candlelight Dance held here, sponsored by the American-Ukrainian Heritage Society.  Around 1981, Ukrainian Hall was renamed Ukrainian Labor Home.

As a boy, Denis Woychuk was brought to the Ukrainian Labor Home by his father, who was looking for work.  Years later, in 1983 and after becoming an attorney, Woychuk bought the building.  He opened the Kraine Art Gallery here and converted the theater space to the Kraine Theater.

Around 1993, Woychuck opened the Kraine Gallery Bar, aka KGB.  It was followed by a black box theater on the third floor called The Red Room.  That space was remodeled in 2013 as a speakeasy-inspired performance venue.

Sharing the building in the 21st century are the New York Neo-Futurists which, according to The WNET Group's website, "create theater that is fusion of sport, poetry and living-newspaper;" a branch of the New York Comedy Club; and the long-lasting KGB Bar.

photograph by Carole Teller

Despite its many iterations and several unsympathetic alterations like the parlor-floor entrance, it is not difficult to imagine the house when the wealthy Graydon family occupied it a century-and-a-half ago.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The Gamaliel and Amelia Rose House - 169 West 87th Street

 

Working as Wilson and Tichborne, William C. G. Wilson and James Tichborne helped to mold the countenance of the Upper West Side in the late 19th century with handsome rows of upscale homes.  In 1889 they hired architect Gilbert A. Schellenger to design another--a row of six 17-feet-wide townhouses at 159 through 169 West 87th Street just east of Amsterdam Avenue.

A marriage of Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival styles, 169 West 87th Street was faced in brownstone.  Like its neighbors, it was three stories tall above a high English basement.  The two styles existed harmoniously at the parlor level where the undressed stone was Romanesque while the prim, fluted pilasters with their lotus leaf capitals were purely Renaissance Revival.  A colorful stained glass tympanum unified the paired windows at this level.  The two upper floors, separated by a projecting bandcourse, were striated--the second by narrow rows of rough-cut stone and the third by incised lines.  A triple layered cornice crowned the design.

On March 29, 1890, the Record & Guide reported that Wilson & Tichborne had sold the house to "Mr. Rose" for $23,500 (about $858,000 in 2026 terms).  "Mr. Rose" was Gamaliel S. Rose, the "paying teller" of the Seventh National Bank.

Moving into the house with him and wife, Amelia, were their daughter Caroline and her husband William S. Hull, a real estate operator.  The family went about their lives quietly and while Hull's name appeared in newsprint regarding real estate transactions, they evaded the notoriety of the society pages.

The quietude of the Rose family's lives was shattered in 1901 when three executives of the Seventh National Bank, including Gamaliel S. Rose, were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury.  On September 23, Rose appeared at the Federal Building to answer charges of the "unlawful certification of the checks of Henry Marquand & Co."  The president of the bank was charged with "conspiracy against the United States."

A secondary headline in The New York Times said, "Messrs. Kimball and Rose and F. B. Poor Held in Heavy Bail."  Indeed, it was.  Rose's bail was set at $5,000, the equivalent of $195,000 today.  His attorney complained, "As for Mr. Rose, it is pretty hard lines for a $1,500 clerk to be put under $5,000 bail for doing what he was told to do by the President of the bank."

Unfortunately, the legal process was sluggish.  Six months later, on March 13, 1902, Rose's attorney asked the courts to dismiss his case.  He was denied.  The trial finally concluded on February 14 the following year.  While all three men were found guilty, "sentence was suspended in the case of Gamaliel S. Rose," reported the New York Herald.

With the embarrassing publicity finally behind them, the Rose family returned to social anonymity.  Their names did not appear in newspapers again until Amelia's death on October 18, 1921.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on October 20.  Just four months later, on February 13, 1922, Gamaliel R. Rose died here.  His funeral was held in the house on the 20th.

Caroline inherited 169 West 87th Street and she and William moved out shortly after.  By 1925, she was leasing 169 West 87th Street to Frank Finkelstein and his wife, the former Sylvia Lekin.  Their baby boy was born in the house on March 11 that year.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

At the time of the Finkelsteins' happy event, Saul A. Rothschild operated his funeral chapel at 2003 Seventh Avenue.  As early as the fall of 1929, he had moved the Saul A. Rothchild's Central Funeral Chapel into 169 West 87th Street, where it would remain for years.

The estate of Caroline L. Hull sold the house to Michael Fahey in October 1938.  Daughter Kathleen M. Fahey was a teenager when the family moved in.  When America entered World War II, she enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserves as a WAVE.  On June 6, 1945, The New York Sun reported that Kathleen, now with the rank of lieutenant junior grade, had passed the training to be a navigator.  Another WAVE in the group explained, "like the men navigators, we'll be used where the Navy needs us.  We may be assigned to classes or we may be assigned to fly, either on cargo or passenger planes."

George C. Joannides purchased 169 West 87th Street in 1951, converting it to furnished rooms.  Then, around 1971, the West Side Community Nursery School moved in.  Established in 1964 on West 90th Street, the school was one of the first private agencies to accommodate both tuition-paying students and those funded by the Federal Head Start program.

Around 1983, the name was changed to Escalera Head Start.  Still occupying the building, it provides care and instruction to children from two to five years old.

The exterior of the Rose house survives essentially intact.

photographs by the author

The Lost Metropolitan Realty Building - 214-218 William Street

 

The roof of the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge fills the lower right corner of the frame.  King's Photographic Views of New York, 1895 (copyright expired)

Following Preserved Fish's death in 1846, The Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review described him as "a rough, obstinant, and eccentric man."  Until 1835, the shipping magnate had lived at 218 William Street, a three-story brick house, "built in a most substantial manner, with 16 inch walls," according to The Evening Post on June 5 that year.

Preserved Fish would not have recognized his old neighborhood in 1870, when construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge, the access road of which would rise just steps away from where his front door had been.  And then, on September 12, 1891, the Record & Guide reported, "The Metropolitan Realty Co. will tear down the old buildings at Nos. 214 to 218 William street, running through to Nos. 18 and 20 Rose street, and erect on the site a large building."

Four months later, on January 9, 1892, the journal reported that William Wheeler Smith was drawing plans for "a thirteen-story...building for manufacturing purposes" on the site.  Saying that it would be "thoroughly fire-proof," the article noted there would be 700 windows, "four elevators and steam heat throughout."  Wheeler placed the construction cost at "between $400,000 and $500,000"--$14.6 million and $18.3 million in 2026 terms.

The Metropolitan Realty Building was completed in 1893.  The plans had been tweaked and the finished structure was 15 stories tall.  As promised, its quadripartite Renaissance Revival design boasted extensive fenestration--the hundreds of windows grouped, for the most part, in threes and fours.  Other than limestone lintels and bandcourses that defined each section, Wheeler's design focused on utility rather than architectural beauty.

Image by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

An advertisement in The Sun on March 19, 1893 called the Metropolitan Realty Building the "strongest, lightest, best-equipped building in this city" and boasted, "windows on four sides."  A more objective testimonial came from The Electrical Age, which wrote on February 8, 1896, "This building is the strongest and best fitted-up fireproof building ever constructed in the city for manufacturing purposes."  It noted that it "has a complete electric light plant."  (Commercial electricity was unreliable and most early skyscrapers like this one had their own dynamos to create power.)

The Metropolitan Realty Building sat within the printing and publishing district, and Smith had designed the building to support heavy printing presses and similar machinery.  Among the initial tenants were W. B. Keller Printing & Publishing, Gardiner Binding and Mailing Company, H. A. Rost Printing & Publishing Company, and the Blumenberg Press.

Like several of its competitors in the building, H. A. Rost Printing & Publishing Co. handled both large and small jobs, the latter typified by the 100-page brochure "The Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the American Society of Railroad Superintendents," published in 1898.  But that year it introduced a novel product, "illustrated mail and postal cards."

A few years before postcards would become a staple of every tourist's trip, an 1898 H. A. Rost ad offered postcards as an advertising novelty, decorated on the front with photography or lithography.  It said in part, "our facilities enable us to take any size plate, from the smallest to the largest, ever made in the country.  Specialties: Exteriors and Interiors of Buildings and Ships, scenery, etc.).

A self-advertising H. A. Rost postcard shows workers in tight quarters and without the advantage of the building's numerous windows.

The Blumenberg Press initiated its own weekly trade journal in 1899, called Paper.  In its April 1899 issue, The Inland Printer called Paper, "one of the handsomest and most interesting weekly magazines which we have seen for a long time."  The gushing review said, "there is no phase of the paper interest which the magazine does not seem to cover, and the numerous and beautifully printed portraits and views are most interesting."

There were, as well, several tenants associated with the burgeoning electric industry.  In 1895, Dale, Farrell & Co. was established, described by The Electrical World as "a new firm of electrical and mechanical engineers and contractors."  While their offices were on Trinity Place, the firm installed its factory in the Metropolitan Realty Building.  Already here was the Electrose Manufacturing Company, which manufactured telephone parts.  And in May 1899, Frederick Pearce & Company, "manufacturer of and dealer in Electricians', Telegraph, Telephone and Electric Light Apparatus," moved its "office, salesroom and factory," into the building, as announced in The Iron Age.

The 1915 Howitzer Advertiser (copyright expired)

Both Edward N. Lynch and Oswald Maune headed printing establishments in the building in 1904.  And, coincidentally, they lived directly across from one another on Vernon Avenue in Brooklyn.  The Lynches had three daughters, including Margaret, and the Maunes had a two sons.  One was a priest and the other, Oswald Jr., was the chief assistant in his father's firm.  The New York Press called Margaret, "one of the prettiest girls in St. John's parish."

In 1901, according to the New York Press, Oswald Jr. "went a-wooing to the Lynch home."  After a "short courtship" his and Margaret's engagement was announced at a "festive gathering in the Lynch dwelling."  One evening in 1904, according to The Sun, "Maune light-heartedly crossed the street from his home.  An hour later he returned sobbing bitterly...Maune saw his fiancée that evening, but mystery veils what passed between them."

What passed between them became evident within a few months.  Margaret checked into a Manhattan maternity hospital as Margaret Lawrence in March 1904.  But she quickly had a change of mind.  The Sun explained that she "sent a letter to Sister Theresa, the superior in charge, in which she said that she was going to commit suicide.  At the same time, her mother received a letter in which the girl said she was going to end her life."

On April 2, a young woman's body was found in Greenfield Cemetery in Mineola, Long Island.  At the time, an illegitimate pregnancy or a suicide would be scandalous and humiliating for a family.  The two together would be unthinkable.

Mrs. Lynch and a family friend, Rev. Father Burns, went to Mineola and identified Margaret's body.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "They decided at the time that it would be best to avoid all publicity in the matter, and for that reason Mrs. Lynch did not tell even the local authorities that the dead woman was her daughter."  Mrs. Lynch told the coroner's physician that the girl was Margaret Laimbeer, and anonymously gave him $100 "to give decent burial to the unfortunate girl," as reported by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

In the meantime, Oswald's renunciation of Margaret had gnawed on his consciousness until, according to a servant in the house, "young Oswald Maune was in an insane asylum, but she did not know where," according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on September 20.

The secret of the Shakespearean-worthy tragedy unraveled in August when The Press discovered that the girl who "was laid in a dishonored grave in Greenfield Cemetery" on April 15, was Margaret Lynch.  The newspaper called Margaret's and Oswald's story, "remarkable," saying it entailed...

two families of social position and exceptional refinement, involving the courtship and engagement of a beautiful girl and a youth of rare promise, and telling of unhappy separation, the young going to an insane asylum, the maid drifting downward to suicide.

Hardware Dealer, October 1895 (copyright expired)

Conreid Langsdorf worked as an electrotyper for Edward Flower & Co., here in 1905.  He used his professional skills to devise what the Pinkerton Detective Agency described as "the newest and most clever method of swindling savings banks."  That fall, Langsdorf opened an account at the Williamsburg Savings Bank with a $35 deposit and received his new bank book.  He made two more deposits, bringing his balance on January 22, 1906 to $75 (about $2,775 today).

On January 24, he withdrew $60.  Then he took his bank book to work, disassembled it and removed the page with the debit.  He then expertly reproduced a blank page, inserted it, and rebound the book.  Now his balance appeared, again, to be $75.  He would, most likely, have gotten away with the scheme if he had not repeated it within quick succession.  A teller became suspicious and Langsdorf was arrested on March 15.  He seemed to have been more prideful than remorseful about his clever scheme.  He confessed to detectives:

I got the idea quite a while ago that I could do the savings banks out of plenty of money.  I was going to open accounts in a dozen other banks if I got enough capital out of the Williamsburg Bank.

A vintage postcard shows the Manhattan Realty Building and the bridge approach in the upper left.  image courtesy of Peter Alsen.

Labor troubles in the early 20th century often came with violence and mayhem.  Frederick Pearce & Company had large contracts with the U.S. Government during World War I, but at the conflict's end, they were cancelled.  The firm "had to let many of their employe[e]s go," explained the New York Herald.  In response, 250 of the remaining 335 employees went on a "sympathy strike."

At 10:00 on the morning of May 14, 1919, a boy who worked for Frederick Pearce & Company went to the 14th floor where the firm stored supplies.  There, in the middle of the floor, was a chest.  The curious youth opened it to find a large bomb.  He ran to Walter and Charles Pearce, heads of the firm, who notified the Bureau of Combustibles.  Inspector Owen Egan described the bomb as containing "three pounds of black powder [that] would have blown the upper floors of the building to pieces and thrown the lower floors onto the superstructure of the Brooklyn Bridge, where hundreds of persons are continually arriving and departing on the cars and trains."

This 1941 photograph shows how closely the Metropolitan Realty Building sat to the Brooklyn Bridge approach.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

When the Metropolitan Realty Building was sold in December 1941, The New York Times mentioned that it "is occupied largely by printing concerns."  Among the tenants at the time was the newly established Il Mondo, an Italian daily newspaper.

In 1955, the Metropolitan Realty Building was demolished to make way for the Park Row approach and the widening of the roadways that accessed the Brooklyn Bridge.

many thanks to reader Peter Alsen for suggesting this post

The 1838 Jacob Weeks House - 64 East Third Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

Builder John Hanrahan erected two identical, brick-faced homes at 56 and 58 Third Street (renumbered 62 and 64 East 3rd Street in 1867) around 1838.  The 18-foot-wide residences were designed in the emerging Greek Revival style.  Intricate cast iron stoop railings wrapped the newels, which sat atop stone drums.  Typical of the style, the entrance was slightly recessed behind sturdy pilasters that supported a heavy stone entablature.  The doorway was flanked by narrow sidelights and topped by a three-part transom.  The third floor openings would have been slightly shorter than the others, and a simple wooden cornice would have completed the design.

Robert Carnley, the original owner of 58 Third Street, either quickly sold or rented the house to coal merchant Jacob Weeks.  He was born on Mott Street on June 25, 1803 and The New York Times later recalled, "His parents were English Quakers, of thrifty and industrious habits, and inculcated in their son almost from the cradle those lessons of economy and attention to business that laid the foundation of a large fortune."

Weeks operated three coal yards--on the Bowery, Greene Street and Houston Street.  He added another profession to his listing in the 1840 city directory: "builder."  The New York Times explained, "the universal up-town movement of population decided him to embark in real estate operations.  At that time, he occupied a modest mansion in Third-street."

In the rear yard, as was common at the time, was a smaller house.  Such structures were often used as rental income.  A Black family occupied the rear house of 58 Third Street in 1840.  They were terrified that spring when their son went missing.  An announcement in The Evening Post on May 20 read:

Missing--On the 5th instant, a colored boy, nine years old, named Lawrence Williams, left his home in a manner so mysterious that it thought he was kidnapped.  His complexion is rather light, has an impediment in his speech, and when he went away he was poorly dressed and barefooted.  Any information respecting him, left in the rear of 58 Third street, with his father Thomas Williams, would be gratefully received by his anxious parents.

Thomas M. Cornwell was a trusted clerk of Weeks and as early as 1843 he and his wife, Georgeana, boarded in the East 3rd Street house.  On April 27 that year, the New-York Tribune reported a shocking incident, saying that Jacob Weeks had been arrested "and committed for stealing $19 from the drawer of Thos. Cornwell, 58 Third-street."  The article prompted an immediate reaction from Jacob Weeks.

In fact, the perpetrator was David Roberts.  The following day, the newspaper published an apologetic correction, "owing to the mistake of our informant," and stressed that Jacob Weeks was "a highly respectable man."

The amiable employee-employer relationship was apparently strong and 15 years later the Cornwells were still living with the Weeks.  In October 1857, Georgeana gave birth to their first son, Thomas Jr.  Tragically, he died eight months later on May 15, 1858.

The Cornwells moved out shortly afterward.  Jacob and his wife remained until 1865.  By then, his real estate development business was flourishing.  For instance, he erected "a row of magnificent residences," as described by The New York Times, that engulfed the western blockfront of Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets.  (They would be replaced by the sprawling Cornelius Vanderbilt II mansion.)  When Jacob Weeks died on September 9, 1881 in his mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 58th Street, he left an estate estimated "at from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000," according to The Times.  It would translate to about $95 million on the lower side in 2026.

In the meantime, the East 3rd Street house was rented to the David H. Goodman family.  Goodman ran a clothing business at 116 Chambers Street.  He and his wife suffered an unspeakable tragedy shortly after moving in.  On August 19, 1865, The New York Times reported that their five-year-old son, "was accidentally run over, and instantly killed" by a streetcar at Third Street and Second Avenue.

The Goodmans were replaced in the house around 1867 by Edward Mehl, who operated two saloons--one at 661 Broadway and the other at 156 Fulton Street--and his family occupied 64 East 3rd Street.  The Mehls remained at least through 1871.

The house was owned by William Hoertel as early as March 12, 1876 when he offered, "To Let--A second floor, furnished, suitable for a gentleman and wife; or will let separate to single gentlemen."  Hoertel quickly changed his mind, however, and two months later he sold the house to Jacob and Marie A. Kessler for $12,000 (about $362,000 today).

The Kesslers operated it as a boarding house.  Among the residents in 1879 were Conrad Latus, a meat dealer in the Centre Market; Michael W. Meagher, a stenographer; and Herman Wellhausen, who worked as a clerk.

After boarding here for at least four years, on July 1, 1883 Conrad and Catharine Latus purchased the house for $11,500.  Their young adult daughter, Kate, taught in the Primary Department of Grammar School No. 4 on Rivington Street.

As early as 1887, Dr. John F. Sherman lived here.  He operated his practice from the house, likely in the basement level.  He was called to a rooming house on the Bowery in January that year to attend Alice Collins, a 19-year-old girl who had attempted a self abortion.  She died on January 29 and Sherman "refused a death certificate," instead referring the case to the coroner.  The coroner's inquest discovered that Redfield Clarke, an actor, "had betrayed the girl."

Dr. John F. Sherman was intimately aware of "betrayal."  Five years earlier, when he was 24 years old and living with his mother and step-father on Clinton Street, he met a 15-year-old girl, Matilda L. Stowell.  The New-York Tribune said "he betrayed her under promise of marriage."  When Sherman's step-father, George Sherman, heard that he had "ruined" the teen, he threatened "to break every bone in his body," according to the New-York Tribune, if the young doctor did not marry her.  And Matilda's family threatened "with incarceration in Ludlow Street Jail."

The wedding took place on June 3, 1882, but the couple never lived together.  Now, on January 22, 1889 Sherman sought an escape from Matilda when she sued for support.  He applied in court to annul the marriage "on the ground that he was intoxicated when it took place," as reported by the New-York Tribune, and that he had been under intense pressure and threats.  Sherman told the court that he "is so upset by the persistent demands of his wife that he should live with her and by threats of publicity that he is unable to carry on his business as a physician."  (It is unclear how the case played out.)

Real estate operator Anna Maria Fronmuller purchased the house in April 1891 for $16,250--equal to about $578,000 today. Exactly one year later, on April 2, 1892, the Record & Guide reported that she had hired architects Boekell & Son to make the equivalent of $124,000 today in renovations.  The house was enlarged with a three-story extension in the rear, "interior alterations" were made, and the exterior was given a Queen Anne-style re-do.

Decorated pressed metal cornices were applied over the lintels, and an elaborate entablature and pedimented cornice was placed over the entrance.  It was echoed in the corbeled terminal cornice with its triangular pediment.

64 East 3rd Street originally matched No. 62 next door.  When this photograph was taken in 1940, workers were painting the brick.  The Greek Revival stoop ironwork was intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The residents in the renovated home were middle-class.  On May 16, 1901, for instance, the Morning Telegraph reported, "Julius Harburger pushed his little cart Tuesday from 104 Second Avenue, his old home, to 64 East Third street, where he will abide in the future."  Harburger was an assemblyman, and in the cart were "the manuscripts of all the speeches" he had made "during the last thirty-one years," according to the newspaper that added, "He wouldn't let any one else touch them."

Julius Harburger was born on February 22, 1851.  He was elected president of the Tenth Assembly District in 1876 and to the New York State Assembly in 1876.  He would go on to become Coroner of New York City in 1905 and Sheriff of New York County in 1911.

Julius Harburger, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Harburger's wife, Hattie, was also politically active.  On October 6, 1901, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Julius Harburger, wife of Assemblyman Harburger, and President of the Women's Democratic Club of the east side, presided at a meeting of the auxiliary Committee of the club" in the house.

Following the Harburgers in the house in 1902 was Dr. Solomon Goldenkranz, the city coroner.  (Ironically, Harburger would replace him in that position three years later.)  In 1902 Goldenkranz was disgruntled with the changes in the neighborhood.  He told a reporter from the New-York Tribune in August:

There is a row of houses in the next block where the passer on the street would have no difficulty in picking out evidence of the presence of vicious people.  Then in the cafes and billiard rooms there is a great deal of gambling going on.  These little German cafes, as well as some of the bigger Raines law hotels, are the resorts of people of this sort.

The mention of "Raine law hotels" referred to saloons that operated rooms upstairs for prostitution.

There was at least one person who was aggravated by Goldenkranz's appointment to coroner and, according to Goldenkranz, he "was conspiring to kill him."  So when two mysterious packages arrived at 64 East 3rd Street on December 6, 1901, Goldenkranz was certain they were bombs.  The New York Press reported that while "picking his steps with extreme care," he took the unopened packages to the Fifth Street Police Station.  He gently placed them on the desk and whispered to Acting Captain Churchill, "Infernal machines! I received them this morning in the mail."

Churchill refused to accept them and said, "We'll go right around to court."  He also refused to carry them, directing Goldenkranz to do so.

In the courtroom, Magistrate Mott scoffed, "Afraid of them, are you?  Pooh!  I'll open them."

As the court attendants stared, Mott opened the first package.  "There was revealed a piece of gaspipe, four inches long.  From one end protruded matches," said the article.  The mob whispered, "A bomb!"

Mott opened the second package.  It contained another piece of lead pipe.  But, like the first, it had no powder and no fuse.  The dummy bombs were apparently sent to Goldenkranz simply to alarm him.

During the World War I years, the Hartwell family occupied 64 East 3rd Street.  Early on, Albert Sydney Hartwell volunteered to fight in the war because of his family's ties to France.  The New-York Tribune said, "His mother is French, and he went overseas long before the United States declared war."  The young man fought on the French front and "was twice wounded in both legs when his ambulance was hit by shells and was gassed once," said the newspaper.

On June 5, 1919, The New York Times reported that 4,000 troops had arrived at Hoboken on the transport ships Patricia and St. Louis.  "The most decorated man on the St. Louis was Private Albert Sydney Hartwell of 64 East Third Street, who wore on his breast the Distinguished Service Cross, the Medal Militaire, and the Croix de Guerre with four stars."  The article added, "He is 21 years old."

The estate of Anna Fronmuller sold 64 East 3rd Street in January 1922 to Dr. Joseph I. Singer.  The New-York Tribune noted that he "plans extensive alterations."

photograph by Carole Teller

By the late 1960s, the house had been converted to four cooperative apartments.  The Greek Revival ironwork was replaced with modern examples and the 1892 entrance decoration was removed.  The 1838 interior doorway remains reasonably intact.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The 1888 Fairchild Publishing Bldg - 10 East 13th Street

 

photograph by the author

Although the millionaires of lower Fifth Avenue had already begun moving northward by 1887, the news that John Glass intended to erect a six-story "brick warehouse" at 6 through 10 East 13th Street, just steps from the storied thoroughfare, must have shocked many.  Glass had hired 43-year-old architect Gilbert A. Schellenger to design the structure.  On February 4, 1888, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the project would cost Glass $75,000--or about $2.6 million in 2026.  Construction was completed by the end of the year, and in December Glass sold the building to Eugene A. Hoffman, garnering a satisfying profit.  Hoffman paid $170,000 for the new building.

Schellenger had created an industrial take on the Renaissance Revival style.  Faced in red brick above a cast iron base, the midsection was divided into three three-bay-wide sections by full-height piers.  A Tuscan inspired arched corbel table ran below the sixth floor.  Schellenger compensated for the stoic appearance of the lower floors with ornate terra cotta ornaments, a frieze with a robust chain motif, and a crenelated parapet.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Hoffman sold the property to the Butterick Publishing Company in 1896.  The firm was a household name among American housewives.  In 1863, Ebenezer Butterick had created the first graded sewing patterns, and three years later his sewing machine company began making women's dress patterns.  In 1867, he published the first issue of the Ladies Quarterly of Broadway Fashions.  The business became an enormous success with 100 branch offices in the United States and Canada.

Butterick Publishing Company hired architect Lansing C. Holden to make renovations at a cost of $30,000.  The alterations apparently affected only the interiors.  Court documents later explained that the building was "used and occupied as a storage warehouse [and] at no such times manufacturing or printing machinery was installed, operated or used therein."

On March 1, 1905, Butterick Publishing Company leased the building to the Carey Printing Company, also known as The Carey Press.  Founded in 1898 by Peter M. Carey, the firm specialized in posters, advertising materials and weekend newspaper supplements.  On December 10, 1906, for instance, Walden's Stationer and Printer reported, "The Cary [sic] Printing Company, 6 East Thirteenth street, is printing a very handsome calendar for the new year, which will be worked by the three color process."

The Burr McIntosh Monthly, December, 1908 (copyright expired)

Employees of The Carey Press were union members, a wise decision by the firm's management during the a time of tense labor relations.  In its April 1912 issue, The Typographical Journal reported about the contract Vechten-Waring Company, "a non-union printing firm," had landed with Crerand's Publications, including Crerand's Cloak Journal.  The article said that Vechten-Waring's superintendent had boasted "of his ability to turn out work with any kind of workmen."  That contract was short-lived.  The Typographical Journal said, "The first essay at the job was so rotten that the Crerand people canceled the contract and turned the work over to the Carey Press...a first-class union office."

In the spring of 1914, The Carey Printing Company merged with Friedman Print and moved to Tenth Avenue.  Two years later, on December 2, 1916, the Record & Guide reported that Butterick Publishing had sold 6-10 East 13th Street to Fairchild Brothers.  "The property will be altered for the purposes of the purchasers," said the article.

Fairchild Brothers was founded in 1892 by Edmund, Arthur and Louis E. Fairchild.  In 1910, it published the first issue of Women's Wear Daily, a trade journal that would become a must-read for businessmen and designers involved in the fashion business.  The American Printer explained, "Its volume of business having increased with remarkable consistency, a larger plant was made necessary, hence the purchase of the Butterick building."

A month after buying the building, on January 6, 1917, the Record & Guide reported that Fairchild Press had hired architect Charles E. Birge to make $50,000 in renovations.  The figure would translate to a staggering $1.3 million today.  As was the case with the Butterick Publishing remodeling, the changes were all inside.

On February 5, 1917, The American Printer reported that the former Butterick Building was "being completely remodeled," adding "The entire structure will be occupied by the Fairchild Press, printers of the Women's Wear and Daily News, daily trade papers, and the Men's Wear Director."

An all-male staff works in the editorial offices, while all-female typists work in another part of the Fairchild Publishing building.  photos by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Fairchild Publications operated from East 13th Street for three decades before the firm's astonishing success necessitated larger quarters.  On January 30, 1946, The New York Times reported, "Plans for a printing plant at 3-9 East Twelfth Street and 6-10 East Thirteenth Street to cost $1,000,000 were filed yeterday...by Fairchild Press, Inc."  Those plans were not entirely fulfilled and Fairchild moved to East 12th Street and 6-10 East 13th Street was spared.

The building became home to Bruns, Kimball & Co., distributors of yachts, marine engines and motorboats.   It was established in 1900 and heretofore been operating steps away at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street.

Yachting Magazine, 1932

On January 10, 1947, The New York Sun reported on Bruns, Kimball & Co.'s "twenty-six-foot Marlin sport fishing cruiser."  The article said it was "among the first of the post-war boats to be produced in quantity" adding:

The Marlin, in addition to being at the motor boat show, also is on exhibit at the Bruns Kimball & Co. display rooms, 10 East 13th street, along with a fleet of other cruisers, fishing boats, sailboats, outboards and dinghies.  Kermath inboard engines also are displayed, as they have been for the past thirty-five years that the firm has represented the manufacturers.

Motorboats and yachts were replaced by bicycles by the mid-1970s.  The Stuyvesant Bicycle shop now occupied the ground floor.  It added an innovative item to its stock in 1977, a "roller" that enabled apartment owners to transform their  regular bikes to stationary bicycles.

Stuyvesant Bicycle and the other tenants in the building would have to find new accommodations in 1979 when a renovation began to convert 6-10 East 13th Street to residences.  While preserving its cast iron pilasters, the ground floor was given a modern re-do.  Platform-like balconies were added to the facade and the parapet removed.  

image via miradorrealestate.com

The New York County Courthouse - 60 Centre Street

 

photograph by wallyg

Twenty-two architects submitted designs for a new New York County Courthouse in 1913.  Guy Lowell, a Boston architect, won the competition with his "round building."  On April 19, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide remarked that the substantial commission came with side effects.  "Mr. Lowell will have about two thousand working and detail drawings to prepare, and it will be necessary for him to engage a larger force of draftsmen and larger quarters."  The article added that from his $200,000 fee, about $130,000 of that would be eaten up by "office expenses."

The journal explained that the winning design would now go to "the Court House Board and their architect, Walter Cook," for approval.  That process would initiate the first domino to fall in a long string of disappointments and delays.  On June 21, 1913, the Record & Guide reported, "The justices of the Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday...Mr. Guy Lowell's court house plan."

The borough president invited a committee of five architects to suggest "modifications" to Lowell's circular plan.  They handed Lowell a number of suggested sketches and he subsequently "prepared modified sketches."  Nearly a year later, on May 16, 1916, the Record & Guide reported on the "modified design for the courthouse," saying that the exterior of the building was "only slightly changed."

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, May 16, 1914 (copyright expired)

Lowell's task was, by no means, finished.  On April 24, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that the courthouse site had been "amended."  The article noted, "Guy Lowell, the architect, is to have the revised plan of the building ready by May 1.  He has a large force of draftsmen at work."

The revised Courthouse site.  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, April 24, 1915 (copyright expired)

But red tape, construction costs, and a world war continued to retard the process of erecting a county courthouse.  Then, on November 29, 1919, seven years after Guy Lowell's initial design was accepted, the Record & Guide wrote, "Final action has been taken, after years of effort, upon the plan for a new County court house in Manhattan.  Radical changes, however, will be made in the structure in size, layout, and in cost."

Lowell's original plans projected the cost at between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000 (about $372 million in 2026 terms).  The article said, "The new court house is expected to cost about $6,000,000 and its completion is looked for in about two years.  It will be hexagonal in shape."  Lowell's revised design was "on a less elaborate scale."

Lowell released the revised downscaled rendering in December 1919.  Record & Guide December 20, 1919 (copyright expired)

The new hexagonal design provided for 32 courtrooms for the Supreme Court and ten for the City Court.  "The new Court House will be built of the same excellent materials and will have the same carefully worked out conveniences as the building originally planned," explained the Record & Guide on December 20, 1919.  The article detailed:

The entire exterior, including the porch, will be of granite of a warm tone.  A fine porch or portico will occupy the westerly one of the six sides, giving character and dignity to the building...The other five sides, occupied by the courts, depend for their architectural effect on careful composition--produced by the skillful balancing of void and well space, so that there are no columns or architectural projections to shut off light from the court room windows.

Excavation for the foundation had started in 1918, a year before that article.  And yet Lowell would have to make one more significant change.  On September 4, 1920, he explained in a letter to Fiorello La Guardia, president of the Board of Aldermen, that the granite--a part of the plans since 1913--was now too expensive to use.  He said in part, "we cannot afford all the enhancement that we could allow ourselves some years ago."  Explaining that limestone would be "$600,000 less than the available granite bid," he suggested the former material.  He said, "You see that, though I would have liked granite, I have not allowed my personal preferences to supersede my real wish, which is to give the city the best we can for the money."

Construction was once again delayed by an obstacle that never should have happened.  On November 23, 1920 the Washington D.C. Evening Star reported that the cartage firm Holland & Co. "began dumping ashes in the New York county courthouse excavation in February 1918, and continued doing so until recently."  Now, said the article, the city would have to spend "nearly $400,000 for removal of these ashes so that construction can be begun."

The dignified building sat alone upon its completion in 1927.  photograph by Wurts. Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

In February 1927, 14 years after Guy Lowell first sat before his drafting table and two weeks after his death, the New York County Court House was completed.  The Record & Guide said, "From the porch a collonaded [sic] lobby on the first or main floor leads to the central rotunda."  It and that lobby, said the article, "are paved with marble and have limestone columns and dado."  

The Supreme Court rooms were on the third and fourth floors.  The fifth and sixth floors were set back "leaving a space which can be used as a terrace."  Those levels held the upper part of the two-story library, the justices' reading room, dining room, justice's chambers and such.  "Each Justice's chambers consists of a small vestibule, a secretary's room, and the chamber proper," explained the Record & Guide.

The first floor plan.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide December 20, 1919 (copyright expired)

The costly structure came with a restriction taken for granted today, but highly unusual in 1920.  On March 17, The New York Times reported, "Warning cards against smoking, such as are posted in factories, on which the penalties for violations are printed, confronted attorneys and others having business in the new New York County courthouse yesterday."

An outgrowth of the Great Depression was the Works Progress Administration, which provided jobs to out-of-work Americans.  One segment found work for artists, who suddenly found themselves decorating the walls and ceilings of civic buildings throughout the country.  Included in the massive project were the decorations of the corridors, rotunda, courtrooms and assembly rooms of the New York County Courthouse.

On July 26, 1934, the Springfield Weekly Republic quoted critic Edward Alden Jewell, who panned Attillio Pusteria's new foyer murals in the New York County Courthouse as too traditional.  

The ceiling of the foyer, decorated by Attilio Pusteria.  photo by Peter Vanderwarker from the collection of the Historical Society of the New York Courts.

He said they were "precisely the decorations one would expect to find beyond the massive Corinthian columns of the portico" and complained that they represent the "inevitable allegories, such as Justice, Judgement, Mercy and Enforcement."  Jewell grumbled that American artists were being forced "to paint in the manner of Raphael."

The rotunda with its inlaid marble floors, limestone columns and 1934 dome decoration.  photo by Peter Vanderwarker from the collection of the Historical Society of the New York Courts.

Another group complained about the decoration.  But, unlike Jewell, they were not indignant about the artistic rendering, but about one particular image.  On December 19, 1936, The Detroit Tribune reported that "after a protest had been made by Harlem leaders," the Municipal Art Commission had agreed "that the WPA mural in the New York County Courthouse showing a colored man eating watermelon was 'frivolous,' and said the offending picture would be erased and something else substituted."

The New York County Courthouse became, of course, the scene of hearings and trials from the mundane to the most sensational.  In September 1938, Tammany District Leader James J. Hines, accused of "selling political protection to the underworld," was prosecuted by fledgling District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey.  Hines smugly walked out of the courthouse surrounded by a throng of reporters on September 12.  The Washington D.C. Evening Star explained that the judge "ordered a mistrial yesterday on the grounds that the youthful prosecutor by a verbal slip had 'fatally prejudiced' the jury against the white-haired political boss."

And on December 20, 1952, The New York Times began an article saying, "The man generally considered the most feared figure in the underworld was the principal witness at yesterday's hearing into waterfront conditions by the State Crime Commission.  He was Albert Anastasia, and his defiant appearance on the stand was the most dramatic incident of the hearings to date."

When the New York County Courthouse first opened, one of its elevator operators was Dominick Lupiano, a 48-year-old immigrant from Italy who had run an elevator in the old courthouse building for several years.  Decades later, the Washington D.C. Evening Star would say that he and his wife, Roselle, "scrimped" to put their son, Vincent, through law school.  On one occasion, State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Wagner, Sr. mentioned to Lupiano, "One day, Dominick, you may be taking one of your own sons up to his own chambers.  In this country anything is possible, you know."

Lupiano retired after 40 years of service.  But the now-84-year-old came back on January 4, 1955.  That day Vincent A. Lupiano was sworn in as a justice of the State Supreme Court.  The Evening Star said:  "After the swearing-in ceremony, Dominick Lupiano donned his old elevator operator's uniform cap with a flourish.  Beaming, he escorted Justice Vincent Lupiano to the elevator and took him upstairs to his chambers."

Another set of high profile trials was held here in 1970.  Sixteen members of the Black Panthers were tried on "charges of conspiring to bomb Manhattan department stores, the Bronx Botanical Gardens, police stations, subway switching-rooms and railroad tracks," said The New York Times on February 1.  (The trials ended with mixed guilty pleas, murder convictions and dismissed charges.)

In March 1988, the restoration of the rotunda mural, Law Through the Ages, was initiated.  Somewhat surprisingly, The New York Times reported that the project "is being paid for by lawyers and judges in the building."

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Guy Lowell's dignified and stately Roman Classical style structure has not only been the venue of serious legal trials, but it has inspired producers throughout the decades.  The broad exterior staircase and monumental columns have appeared in countless movies and television shows.  And it remains a crucial element in the architectural personality of Foley Square.