James A. Frame was a prolific real estate developer in the later decades of the 19th century. On December 1, 1883, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that he would be erecting 18 houses on East 79th Street, 13 at the southeast corner of Fourth Avenue (today's Park Avenue) and five at the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue. The architectural firm of Thom & Wilson would be designing the two projects.
Completed in 1884, the eastern-most structure, 142 East 79th Street, was clad in brownstone. Its stone stoop was offset to the west. Thom & Wilson's neo-Grec design included ornate window frames on the 79th Street side. They sat on bracketed sills and wore molded cornices supported by corbeled piers. Below the pressed metal terminal cornice was a frieze of rosette-decorated panels.
An advertisement described:
Southwest Corner of Lexington Ave.; handsome four story high-stoop, brown-stone dwelling, two-story extension, beautifully decorated, hard-wood trimmed; all improvements; on cable road, street 100 feet wide, size of lot 20x102.
James A. Frame sold 142 East 79th Street to John W. Haaren in April 1885 for $35,000 (about $1.2 million in 2026). Haaren was a partner in the importing firm of Haaren & Meinken, founded in 1865 with Henry Meinken. Both men dealt in real estate, as well. Haaren and his wife, Marie, had four children, John William, Henry F., Mamy M., and Lena W.
On the afternoon of March 11, 1891, John and Marie went for a drive. The New York Herald reported, "He drove a spirited team hitched to a light side-bar buggy." At around 6:30, they stopped at the house of a friend on 57th Street near Ninth Avenue. John ran in "to speak to his friend," while Marie waited in the buggy. Just as he was leaving, a Ninth Avenue elevated train passed. The New York Herald reported, "The noise of the train frightened the horses, and they started on the run through Fifty-seventh street." John ran after them, but fell. Getting to his feet, he continued the chase.
The panicked horses crashed into a truck at 57th Street and Third avenue. Two policeman caught the horses and calmed them. Inside the buggy, Marie Haaren was unconscious. By the time John arrived (no doubt breathless from his marathon), a neighborhood doctor had diagnosed Marie with "nervous shock." Based on that, when the ambulance arrived John asked them to take her to their home, rather than a hospital.
It was an understandable decision, but a fatal one. Marie regained consciousness on the way home, but fainted again. The New York Herald reported, "On reaching her home she was taken to her room, and almost immediately died." The 56-year-old had a history of heart problems and, according to the newspaper, "it is thought the fright caused by the runaway brought on an attack of the disease."
Marie's funeral was held in the parlor of 142 East 79th Street on March 15, followed by a service at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue and 88th Street.
John Haaren sold 142 East 79th Street in 1896. John L. Jordan converted the basement to a commercial space and the upper floors into three sprawling apartments, including one duplex.
The store, with the address of 1140 Lexington Avenue, became home to S. Blumberg's drug store while the apartments were rented to well-to-do tenants. A mysterious woman who moved into the building in June 1903 was Jane Leroy. The "jewel-bedecked woman" was arrested for shoplifting in a Broadway department store on August 27, caught "stealing doilies worth $23.10," as reported by The Evening Post. (The value of the lacy heist would translate to about $868 today.)
As it turned out, Jane Leroy was, in fact, the wife of jeweler Henry R. Levi. They originally lived in Washington D.C., but according to The Evening World, now lived in a luxurious home at 315 East 46th Street. The couple, it appears, were having domestic problems. Levi arrived at the stationhouse that evening and furnished his wife's staggering $19,000 bail.
The next day, a lawyer's clerk told the magistrate that "the woman was too ill to appear." Magistrate Ommen would not have it. "That's no good. I'll give you until 11 o'clock to produce the defendant, otherwise her bond will be forfeited," he demanded. The New York Herald reported, "A little later Mrs. Levi came to court in a carriage. She persisted in saying she was Jane Leroy, a housekeeper living at 142 East Seventy-ninth."
As early as 1913, the store space was home to Frederick Bahr's grocery store. It would become the Planodome Market within a decade.
"St. Peter's" magazine, September 1913 (copyright expired)
In the meantime, William J. Baird occupied an apartment here as early as 1919. The bachelor was an "athletic instructor," according to the New-York Tribune. On March 20, he took his fiancé, Alice Whitman of Brooklyn, to the Palace Theatre. The night ended badly. William briefly excused himself during intermission. When he returned to his seat, Alice told him that Dr. Albert L. Roth, who sat nearby, "had annoyed her during his absence." The New-York Tribune reported that Baird left his seat "and punched the face of Dr. Albert L. Roth." He and Alice then started out of the theater.
Dr. Roth called out to a sailor nearby to stop him. The sailor held Baird until a policeman responded and arrested him. In night court, Baird explained his actions, saying, "I lost my temper, but I am willing to apologize." The New-York Tribune reported, "Dr. Roth, who had lost a tooth, would have none of his apology, and Baird was fined $10, which he paid."
In 1929, architect Lafayette A. Goldstone was hired to renovate the building. The stoop was removed and a triangular pediment placed over the new, sidewalk-level residential entrance. There were now offices on the second floor, one apartment each on the third and fourth floors, and two "non-housekeeping" apartments on the fifth. (The term meant that they had no kitchens.)
The ground-floor entrance to the apartments can be seen in this 1940 tax photo. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The tenants continued to be well-to-do. The widow of Dwight Morgan Platt and her daughter, Miriam Dwight, lived here in 1929 when Miriam was married to John Merrill Congdon in Sherry's on October 21 that year. The engagement and the wedding were heavily covered in society pages for weeks.
Wealthy widow Eila Haggin McKee, daughter of millionaire James B. Haggin, moved into an apartment building next door in 1928. The structures were owned by the same firm. The New York Times reported, "she missed the flowers that were her hobby on her Summer estate, Blue Blinds, at Smithtown Branch, L. I., so she rented the roof space on the adjoining building at 142 East Seventy-ninth...at a cost of $800 annually." The article said, "The roof was only a step down from her apartment next door, and she sealed the stairway in the apartment at No. 142 which led to the roof."
The last remnant of James A. Frame's ambitious row, 142 East 79th Street is dwarfed by its neighbors today.
Problems came in 1936 when Eila McKee died. The New York Times explained that the executors canceled the lease on the apartment, "presuming that the cancellation agreement also covered the garden space." It did not. By then, the buildings were separately owned. The estate was in court for at least three years trying to untangle the complicated issue, which not only dealt with the rent, but the restoration of the internal staircase and access to the roof in 142 East 79th Street.
As early as 1940, Ruth Forster's florist shop occupied the ground floor. In 1955, it was known as Betty Forster, Inc., the name presumably that of Ruth's daughter. In the late 1980s, a florist shop, now the Strakes Florists, still occupied the space.
During a renovation in 1974, the residential entrance was moved to the Lexington Avenue side (although retaining the East 79th Street address). The 79th Street entrance now accessed the store. The remodeling resulted in offices on the second floor and one apartment each on the upper stories.
photographs by the author
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