The son of Abraham and Hester Kingsland Bussing, John Schermerhorn Bussing was born on Cortlandt Street on October 15, 1802. His two maternal aunts had married into the prominent Schermerhorn family, prompting his middle name. Bussing formed a dry goods business, E. & J. Bussing, with his brother, Edmund. Following Edmund's death 26 years later, John changed course, founding the iron and nail firm, John S. Bussing & Company. He married Agnes Ann Speir in 1825 and the couple had a son, Robert Speir, who was born in 1826. Anne died in 1831.
Two years later, John married Ann Van Nest in her parent's home. The couple, with young Robert, moved into the Van Nest home, once the summer mansion of Sir Peter Warren. A son, Abraham VanNest Bussing was born in 1834 and John Stuyvesant Bussing arrived on September 21, 1838. Sadly, Abraham died at the age of five in 1838.
Around 1845 John S. Bussing and Peter R. Bonnet, most likely close acquaintances, began construction of matching brownstone-faced residence at 154 and 156 Twelfth Street, respectively. (The addresses would be altered to 4 and 6 West 12th Street in 1855.) Twenty-five-feet wide and four stories tall above English basements, they held their own with the mansions rising on Fifth Avenue just steps away. Next to the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, the entrance sat within a striking portico, its fluted columns capped with complex palm leaf capitals.
John Schermerhorn Bussing, Genealogies of the State of New York, 1915 (copyright expired)
In 1848, not long after moving into their mansion, the Bussings' only daughter, Mary, was born.
John Bussing was active in the public schools. As early as 1850, he held the position of Chairman of Section No. 1 in the public and primary school system.
John Schermerhorn Bussing died in the East 12th Street house on June 9, 1864 at the age of 62. His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.
Robert Speir Bussing had joined his father's business as a young man. He married Mary Kingsland on January 8, 1850 and at the time of his father's death the couple was living in Brooklyn.
John Stuyvesant Bussing had served in the Civil War. By now he was a partner in the banking and brokerage firm Gelston & Bussing and still lived with his mother and sister at 4 East 12th Street.
John Stuyvesant Bussing, Genealogies of the State of New York, 1915 (copyright expired)
John married Kate Breath in 1873. In what must have been unspeakable emotional anguish for John, Kate died in childbirth the following year, as did the couple's twin daughters, Kate and Anne. He married Emily Morton Jenkins on October 31, 1882. The couple lived with Ann and Mary at 4 East 12th Street.
It was acceptable for even well-to-do and socially prominent families to take in a boarder and in 1873 Henry C. Overin, the proprietor of the Phoenix Stables on West 46th Street, lived with the family. He was separated from his wife, Mary, whom he married in 1865. The New York Times explained that for a few years, "they lived unhappily." Overin lived here through 1880, and it would not be until his death in 1898 that his name appeared in newspapers. When both Mrs. Mary E. Overin and a decidedly younger Mrs. Caroline Overin laid claim to Henry's estate and business, the wealthy stable owner's duel life came to light.
In the meantime, John Bussing was highly involved with church and civic activities. For decades he was a member of the consistory of the College Reformed Church. He would, additionally, become one of the board of managers of the Young Men's Christian Association and of the Young Women's Christian Association. In 1877, he was among a group of gentlemen who hoped to reform alcoholics. On May 27, The New York Times reported that the men "have issued an appeal for assistance to enable them to establish a home for the reformation of drunkards."
Mary, who would never marry, was the victim of a pickpocket on March 2, 1882. The New York Times reported that as she "was looking at the window of a Broadway store," James Harvey "rifled the sack pocket" of Mary Bussing. The article said, "The only plunder he secured, was a card-case containing some cards and a few postage stamps."
Both Mary and Anne were active in philanthropic and charitable causes. Anne's father, Abraham Van Nest, had been a trustee of Rutgers College and Van Nest Hall there was named in his honor. In 1898, Anne "built a stone porch to Van Nest Hall and also refitted the eastern portion of the second story into a handsome hall for the use of the students in elocution," reported the New-York Tribune. She was a generous benefactor of the Theological Seminary in New Brunswick and established the Bussing Prize there.
Mary Bussing was a founder of the Christmas Letter Mission. The group endeavored to brighten the holidays of orphans, the indigent, prisoners, and hospitalized patients. She explained in a letter to the editor of the New-York Tribune on December 15, 1887, "these beautiful letters, with a bright card inclosed [sic], are sent as a surprise on Christmas morning to the suffering ones." She noted, "Twenty-five cents will send six of these sunbeams into lonely hearts."
John and Kate Bussing moved to 26 East 10th Street in 1886. Now only Ann and Mary remained in the East 12th Street house with their staff of servants. After a "severe attack of pneumonia," as reported by the New-York Tribune, Ann Van Nest Bussing died in the mansion at the age of 93 on January 8, 1905.
In 1918, Mary Bussing sold the house that her parents had built seven decades earlier and the only home she had ever known. On February 23, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported, "Samuel Marcus...contemplates altering the 4-story brick and stone dwelling at 4 East 12th st., into studios and apartments." The cost of the renovations, said the article, would be $15,000, or about $312,000 in 2026. Plans filed by architects Jonathan B. Snook Sons included "remove stoop and [install] plumbing."
The renovations, completed in 1920, resulted in bachelor apartments. The term did not mean that tenants were not restricted to men, but that the apartments did not have kitchens.
Among the initial residents were Joseph P. Dugan, an engineer, and English-born D. Frank Gordon. On October 25, 1920, the two men went uptown to join a rally by gubernatorial candidate Dudley Field Malone. Professor Walter Edgerton Holloway first addressed the crowd and things began getting tense when , as described by The New York Times, the speaker "harangued a crowd of 5,000 Irish sympathizers near the Maine Monument." Joseph Dugan remarked to Gordon, "Edgerton is a poor speaker, I wish Malone would hurry up and talk."
The New York Times said that the "casual remark to a friend was misinterpreted." The Evening World reported that an Irishman in the crowd instead heard, "to the devil with Lord Mayor MacSwiney." (MacSwiney was the former Lord Mayor of Cork.) The article said, "An Irishman punched Gordon and a yell went up, 'He cursed MacSwiney!'" The New York Times reported that Dugan and Gordon were beaten and Dugan "nearly lost his life at the hands of a mob." Happily, police officers were on hand to rescue them.
In 1927, the newly-formed Institute of World Unity moved into the building, presumably in the basement level. An educational and cultural organization, its goal was to promote racial tolerance and international peace. By 1930, it also published World Unity Magazine from the address.
The institute was followed by The Meeting Place, Inc. around 1931. A renovation by architects Beineix & Snyder in 1934 better accommodated the organization. The Meeting Place now occupied the basement and first floors, and the upper floors held apartments.
The stoop and portico of 6 East 12th Street was originally a match to the one removed from No. 4 in 1918. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Among the first tenants in the renovated apartments was artist Reginald Marsh, who was recently divorced. He moved into the building in February 1933. Born in Paris in 1898, Marsh would become noted for his depictions of New York City life, like unemployed men on the Bowery and lively Coney Island boardwalk scenes.
In January 1934, Marsh married painter Felicia Meyer and, according to Ellen Wiley Todd in her New Woman Revised, the couple left 4 East 12th Street that month. Apparently Marsh retained his studio here, however, because when he won a cash prize in the 122th annual exhibition of the national Academy of Design in 1937, his address was still listed at 4 East 12th Street.
Another renovation, completed in 1952, resulted in a "business office" in the basement and apartments on the upper floors. Among those living and working here in the 1960s were composer, librettist and lyricist Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, and painter and printmaker Betty Waldo Parish. Later television and documentary producer David E. J. Berger and his collaborator and wife Holly Maxson lived and worked here.
Despite the loss of the stoop and parlor entry, 6 East 12th Street survives remarkably intact above the basement level. Today, the building, with its remarkable history, holds eight apartments.
photographs by the author
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