photograph by the author
In 1651, Peter Stuyvesant established two farms far north of New Amsterdam. The lane that separated Bouwerij #1 and #2 would eventually become Stuyvesant Street. When East 10th Street (part of the rigid street grid of the 1811 Commissioners Plan) was opened in 1826, the diagonally-running Stuyvesant Street created an odd shaped parcel, the triangular point of which Elizabeth Stuyvesant retained as her garden. Four years after Elizabeth's death on September 16, 1854, Matthias Banta purchased the point for development.
Most historians attribute the resultant rowhouses to James Renwick, Jr., who had designed the magnificent Grace Church about three blocks to the west in 1846. Completed in 1861, the Anglo-Italianate, five-story-and-basement homes varied from 16- to 32-feet-wide and (because of the triangular plot), their depths ranged from 16- to 48-feet.
Like its neighbors, the rusticated brownstone basement and first floors of 192 Tenth Street (renumbered 124 East 10th in 1867) sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in brownstone. The tall, fully-arched windows of the second floor held hands by means of a stone bandcourse. Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.
The first occupant of the house was James G. Maeder, who listed his profession as "music" and likely rented it from Banta. In 1863, Hiram A. Pettibone and his wife, the former Henrietta Davenport, moved in.
Pettibone was a stockbroker with an office at 70 Broad Street. Born on January 19, 1805 in Syracuse, New York, he and Henrietta were married in Worchester, Massachusetts on June 13, 1859. The newlyweds' bliss would be short-lived. Hiram died the same year they moved into their new home.
Henrietta A. Pettibone remained, taking in respectable boarders. Living here in 1864 were two lawyers, Andrew J. Coe and Robert A. Piper. An interesting boarder arrived in 1867. Christian von Hesse was listed in directories as "lawyer, notary and commissioner of deeds for all the States and Territories."
Von Hesse continued to board here after Phoebe Shaw began operating 124 East 10th Street as a boarding house in 1868. Phoebe was the widow of Joshua Shaw.
Unlike Harriette Pettibone, who took in one or two boarders at a time, Phoebe Shaw ran a true boarding house. In 1869, Edmund and Germaine Duverger arrived from France and took rooms. Duverger was an importer and dealer in French lace. His factory was in Brussels and he opened a store here for the sale of his goods. He was quickly a success. The New-York Tribune said his store "is well known to many prominent business men on Broadway."
On Saturday evening of November 13, 1869, "two men called at the residence of Mrs. Phoebe Shaw, No. 124 East Tenth-st., and inquired for Mr. E. Duverger," recounted the New-York Tribune. They asked to see examples of Duverger's laces and, although they were unable to provide business cards, Duverger complied. They left but returned five minutes later. They declared, "These are smuggled goods and we seize them!"
When Duverger insisted he had paid duty on the goods and refused to relinquish them, one of the men displayed a Custom House badge and the other "drew a revolver and repeated the order." Unwilling to allow his valuable laces out of his presence, Duverger accompanied the men to the St. Charles Hotel. Here a "large man, with a huge black mustache and jet black hair," as described by the New-York Tribune, represented himself to be Collector Grinnell. He looked over Duverger's certificates and told him the duty he had paid was insufficient and demanded more.
On Monday morning, Duverger protested to Deputy Collector Clark of the Custom House. The case was turned over to Treasury Department agents and a Federal investigation was launched. Edmund Deverger accompanied two agents to room 15 at the St. Charles Hotel. There they found two of the bogus collectors, both of whom held responsible Government positions. John W. Lalor was a clerk in the Naval Office and Frederick G. A. Keever was a Custom House broker.
Phoebe M. Shaw died on June 6, 1879. Her funeral was held in the parlor of 124 East 10th Street on June 9.
As early as 1886, Martin and Mary Burke occupied the house. They apparently did not offer meals to their tenants because the house was no longer listed as a boarding house, but as "lodgings."
An interesting tenant was Eugene Thwing, who lived here in 1888. An ardent prohibitionist, he and a comrade, George B. Smith, were accused by The Evening World on November 2 of stuffing a ballot box with votes for a Prohibition candidate. Similar to the mail-in ballot controversy today, The Evening World charged that a Prohibitionist had falsified Postal-Card Votes "on the ground that the handwriting on many of the cards voting for Prohibition candidates is the same."
Thwing and Smith fired off a letter to the editor of The Evening World, saying, "While the charge is a decidedly unpleasant one and throws disgrace upon members of the party, it is very easily explained away." They said that they took a stack of voting postcards to "a large rally at Cooper Union and a parade before the meeting." Because the marchers were marching and the rallyers were rallying, "many of them requested that the cards be filled out for them."
The fervent Thwing sent another letter to the editor of The Evening World the next day:
Should a million dollars come to be sudden one-half of it would certainly go to the National Prohibition party as the best way to [stamp] down rum and secure a clean and non-sectional party. With the other half I would quit business, and, after travelling awhile, would settle down and study music.
Mary Burke died on May 14, 1893 and, once again, a funeral was held in the parlor here. Her husband continued to operate the lodging house for at least another year.
The change from a boarding house to a lodging house reflected the decline in the neighborhood. The tenants of 124 East 10th Street also reflected the changes.
Among those renting rooms here in 1899 was Viola Randall. The 22-year-old worked as a waitress in the Sharon Hotel on Third Avenue. On August 14, she got into a quarrel over a man with another waitress, Lottie Herman, who was 19. The Morning Telegraph said, "trays, glasses, chairs and other things were thrown about." Viola took things a step further by stabbing Lottie in the side and arm. The injured teen was taken to Bellevue Hospital and Viola was taken to the Yorkville Police Court.
Adolph Schilder and his family occupied rooms here in 1904 when their 17-year-old daughter, Annie, disappeared on April 17. The Evening World described her as "a pretty girl of the brunette type." The newspaper said, "Her father searched every hospital and police station in greater New York, but found no trace of her." Then, ten days after her disappearance, Schilder was walking along Third Avenue near 13th Street when he saw Annie arm in arm with 24-year-old Abraham Grossman. According to The Evening World, Annie was caught in a tug-of-war between her father and suitor, each one pulling on an arm. Two detectives came upon the scene and, after hearing Adolph Schilder's story, arrested Grossman for abduction.
Annie later told officials that the older man "had promised her a trip around the world, fine silk and satin dresses, a life of unbroken ease and all the happiness to be found on earth." The Evening World concluded, "She liked his story and went away with him."
Resident Mrs. Angelina Piliero was the guardian of her 17-year-old sister, Josephine Belmont in 1912. The girl had recently "escaped" from the House of the Good Shepherd after being "rescued at sixteen from the clutches of white slavers," said The Evening World. She fled to Angelina's house where her older sister kept a "close watch on her." But despite those precautions, Josephine "got into communication with a man she had known before her commitment," reported the newspaper on January 18, 1913, "and yesterday she disappeared."
After several failed attempts, including a visit to "Boob" Walker's ball in the Long Star Hall on First Avenue (where she was refused entry), Angelina heard that Josephine had taken a room at 124 East 10th Street. She went there with six policemen. Josephine's room was empty, but officers discerned a "stifling, pungent odor" in the hallway. They recognized it as opium. Going to the third-floor room where the smell was heaviest, the detectives kicked in the door. The Evening World reported:
Six men were stretched out on the floor, stupefied by the drug. A girl, her body draped with a flimsy kimono, lay at one end of the room. She was the only one who seemed to hear the noise. She stirred uneasily. "I'm too happy to get up now," she murmured.
A detective asked Angelina, "Is this your sister?" She screamed "yes" and "fell headlong across the girl's body." Angelina had fainted at the sight of Josephine's condition.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Things had not considerably improved by midcentury. Living here in 1954 was Walter Latoski. The 32-year-old earned his living, outwardly, as a mechanic. He augmented his income by joining a gang of thieves. In July that year, he and seven other men highjacked a truck "transporting $30,000 worth of coffee beans from Brooklyn to Jersey City," as reported by The New York Times. Five of the gang were found guilty on December 3, while three, including Walter Latoski, were acquitted for a lack of evidence.
On April 2, 1960, The New York Times reported that Mildred Frankel had sold "the five-story rooming house" to Albert Dionne and his wife. The article said, "It will be altered and continued as a rooming house by the new owners."
Then, in 1976, the vintage house was renovated into a two-family home. Happily, the exterior of 124 East 10th Street survives nearly unchanged since its completion in 1861.
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment