William E. Waring's 1881 106 West Houston Street

 

William E. Waring was perhaps best known for his tenement building designs.  In 1881, real estate investors Louis P. Dexheimer and Henry Thole hired him to design two tenement-and-store buildings at 104 and 106 West Houston Street at the northeast corner of Thompson Street.   Thole's building, No. 106, would be identical to that of Dexheimer.  Completed within the year, they were faced in brownstone and reflected an interesting mix of Italianate and neo-Grec styles.

The residential entrance to 106 West Houston Street was located around the corner at 164 Thompson Street.  Its handsome stone enframement included scrolled corbels that upheld a classical triangular pediment.  It and the segmentally arched windows were Italianate, however the incised carvings of the lintels and the geometric lines of the cast metal cornice were purely neo-Grec.  To further confuse the architectural mix, Waring capped the cornices with Classical-style pediments topped with an anthemion, and flanked them with neo-Classical urns.

There were two apartments per floor in the building.  The store became home to H. Reiken's drugstore.  An advertisement he placed in the New York Herald on October 10, 1883 hinted at the neighborhood's demographics:

Drug Clerk (Junior)--That can speak French fluently and has had city experience may apply H. Reiken, 106 West Houston st.

In 1888, Leon Wernert graduated from the College of Pharmacy New York and took over the operation of the pharmacy.  He and Pietro Drureno established a symbiotic relationship when, on November 27 that year, Drureno received a permit to operate a newsstand on the sidewalk outside the drugstore.

Two of the urns on the shared cornice survived as late as 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Tom Turner lived at 64 South Fifth Avenue (today's LaGuardia Place) in 1889.  On the morning of March 27, he came into the drugstore and bought "forty grains of quinine," as reported by The Evening World.  It is unclear why Turner wanted the medication, which was mostly used to treat malaria.  In any case, said the article, he "took all of it on the spot.  It made him feel very sick and he had to be taken home and attended by a physician."  Presumably Turner survived the ordeal.

Among the residents in 1893 was James Hayden, described by the New York Herald as "a notorious pickpocket, who is also known as Funeral Wells."  Once a bookkeeper, the newspaper explained that now, "His picture is in the Rogues' Gallery and he has spent many years in prison."  Having a criminal past in the 19th century was reason enough to be arrested.  On October 9, 1893, Hayden and three other men were loitering around Sixth Avenue and 28th Street.  Detectives Sullivan and Lang noticed the "quartette of crooks," as described by the New York Herald.  "The crooks didn't do anything unlawful, so they were arrested as suspicious characters." said the article.  It continued, "They will be arraigned in Jefferson Market Police Court this morning."

Leon Wernert moved his business to Third Avenue.  The pharmacy here was taken over by Frederick Sutheim.  In the meantime, the residents continued to be middle class.  Living here in 1897 were the families of Gustav Grumbach, who ran a fur business on Clinton Place (today's West 8th Street); tailor Joseph Eremito; Peter Campora, who ran a florist shop steps away at 100 West Houston Street; Dominico Livellara, whose butcher shop was on Bleecker Street; and Caroline Buzze, a widow.

By the outbreak of World War I, Paul F. Gebicke ran the drugstore.  Born in Germany in 1854, he was vice-president and custodian of the mortuary fund of the German Apothecaries' Society of New York.  Although the neighborhood was greatly filled with Italian immigrants, the German druggist was "very popular" according to The Practical Druggist in December 1919.

Druggist Paul F. Gebicke, The Practical Druggist, December 1919 (copyright expired)

In the post-World War I years, the neighborhood saw increasing violence and crime.  Giuseppe Pepe lived here as early as 1920.  On January 20, 1921, The Evening World reported that he had been arrested for "peddling home made hootch to householders."

On the night of August 8, 1922, Alfred Form staggered into the drugstore and collapsed.  The 30-year-old tailor "had been stabbed in the abdomen and the left hand," reported the New York Herald.  The article said, "He became unconscious before he could be questioned and was in a serious condition when taken to St. Vincent's Hospital."  Detectives surmised that the stabbing was a result "of labor troubles in the clothing business."

The Valeati family occupied an apartment here in 1927.  On September 4 that year, 15-year-old Tony Valeati was watching a dice game in the rear yard of the building.  A quarrel broke out between two of the gamblers.  The New York Times reported, "A pistol was drawn and Tony was shot in the left shoulder."  Happily, the wound was not serious and he was treated at St. Vincent's Hospital.  The gamblers, not unexpectedly, had scattered.

Boys play in a stack of paving blocks as a limousine crosses West Houston street in 1932.  The excavation for the subway had been covered, but the pavement had not been repaired yet.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

After having been a pharmacy for decades, in the Prohibition years the store became a "pasticceria and gelateria," or pastry and gelato shop.  By the early 1960s, it was a cafe, La Casa Di Arturo, operated by Arthur Giunta.  (In 1964, he was refused a beer license because he had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in 1959 and because it was within 200 feet of a school, St. Anthony's School.)

The name La Casa Di Arturo eventually was honed down to Arturo's, a famous Greenwich Village spot for Italian food and pizza.  A blurb in Claudia Varrin's 2002 A Guide to New York's Fetish Underground described Arturo's fare, "Terrific brick-over pizza, great mussels in wine sauce, live jazz on selected nights."

Arturo's has spread into the twin building next door.

More than half a century after Arthur Giunta opened his cafe, Arturo's remains a Greenwich Village destination.  William E. Waring's 1881 building has lost the urns that once decorated its cornice, but overall its appearance is little changed.

photographs by the author