The 1887 Charles B. Poor House - 367 Manhattan Avenue

 

In 1889, Andrew Carnegie gave architect William B. Tuthill a significant commission--designing Carnegie Hall.  But three years earlier, in September 1886, when Tuthill designed a row of 10 three-story houses along the western blockfront of Manhattan Avenue between 115th and 116th Streets for George F. Ferris, the 31-year-old was better known for his singing capabilities than for architecture.

Tuthill designed the row in a satisfying blend of Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles.  Toward the center of the row, 367 Manhattan Avenue was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The fully arched openings of the parlor floor were capped with sturdy voussoirs of undressed stone.  The second story sat between two intermediate cornices, while the third featured two arched windows with brick eyebrows and a gable with Queen Anne style stone tiles.  The brick piers on either side terminated in elaborate Corinthian capitals.  The house had cost Ferris $7,000 to build--about $235,000 in 2024.

An advertisement in the New York Herald on October 18, 1887 read, "Charming 20 foot residence 367 Manhattan av., for sale; price $15,000; convenient to Morningside Park and 116th street "L" station."

Instead, however, Ferris ended up leasing the house, its monthly rent equivalent to about $2,741 today.  In 1895, Charles B. Poor moved his family into 367 Manhattan Avenue.  Poor juggled two professions.  He was a wine merchant at 44 Beaver Street while also running a real estate operation at 45 Broadway.  He and his wife had a daughter.

In May 1896, Charles B. Poor's name appeared in newspapers from coast to coast.  He was the first juror selected for the sensational "Chowder Trial."  

Two years earlier, the Bliss family moved to 121 Manhattan Avenue, about ten blocks south of the the Poors' home.  Henry H. Bliss, the deputy librarian at the College of the City of New York, had married his wife, Evelina, on July 23, 1868.  Also living in the house was Evelina's daughter by a former marriage, Mary Alice Almont Livingston Fleming, and her children.  It was not a tranquil arrangement, with Mary Alice constantly at odds with her mother and step-father over finances.

On the night of August 30, 1895, Evelina and Mary Alice got into another heated argument in Henry's presence.  After dinner Evelina fell violently ill.  A doctor was called who diagnosed "mixed poisoning."

On September 9, 1895, the Glens Falls Daily Times reported, "Nine days ago Mrs. Evelina M. Bliss ate some clam chowder.  Five hours after eating it she was dead."  An investigation by Dr. Henry A. Mott, an analytical chemist, discovered "a large amount of arsenic in the stomach of Mrs. Bliss," according to testimony later.

The morning after Evelina's death Mary Alice was arrested "and locked up in the Tombs charged with murdering her mother," said the Glens Falls Daily Times.  An official told the newspaper, "There is not the shadow of a doubt that Mrs. Bliss was poisoned by eating clam chowder."

On May 12, 1896, The World reported that after "more than four hours of questioning," Charles B. Poor had been selected as the first juror.  "He evidently didn't care to serve; but he had no valid excuse and was acceptable to both sides."  The newspaper described him as "a slender, well-dressed man with a brown beard tinged with gray."

Charles B. Poor in the courtroom.  The World, May 12, 1896 (copyright expired)

The reluctant Charles Poor was also selected as the jury's foreman.  The group deliberated for 19 hours (and wrangled over the possibility of condemning a woman to the death penalty).  On June 26, 1896, the Pike County [Pennsylvania] Press reported, "When Clerk Brophy asked foreman Charles B. Poor if the jury had agreed upon a verdict, he replied: 'We have.  Not guilty.'"  For the rest of his life, Poor would be remembered as having uttered those words.

Two months after the trial, Poor's wife and daughter were in the country while he remained in the city to conduct business.  On August 28, he and two friends, Dr. and Mrs. William T. Alexander, took a bike ride to Yonkers.  Returning late in the evening, they reached 163rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, "when horses attached to a light road wagon bore down upon Mr. Poor," reported the New York Herald.

In what can only be described as the perfect storm of bad luck and timing, the article said Poor attempted to avoid the team, "but was seized with a stroke of epilepsy.  He fell heavily, striking the curb.  He lost consciousness and blood poured from a gash in his head."  Reminding its readers that Poor "was the foreman of the Fleming jury," the newspaper said he was seriously injured and "is suffering at his home, No. 367 Manhattan avenue."

Charles B. Poor's luck would not improve.  At a time when it was often easier for a woman to have her husband committed to a lunatic asylum than to obtain a divorce, on November 12, 1898 the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that Poor "was committed to the insane pavilion at Bellevue yesterday morning."  This, said the article, was done, "despite Poor's vehement statement that he had been examined by two reputable physicians and pronounced to be sane."

Poor apparently never got over his wife's betrayal.  After being released, in 1906 he boarded with a family at 69 West 83rd Street.  On January 6, 1907, he committed suicide by throwing himself into the Harlem Canal.

In the meantime, by 1900 Poor's former home on Manhattan Avenue was being operated as a boarding house.  Living here that year was William Henry Glasson, who held a Ph.B. from Cornell University.  Martin J. Jackson moved in at the beginning of 1901.  He placed an announcement in The New York Dramatic Mirror on February 9 that read, "Martin J. Jackson, designer of costumes and at one time with the well known London costumer, is now located at 367 Manhattan Avenue, this city."

In 1912 and 1913, the house was the clubhouse of the Monongahela Democratic Club, a Tammany Hall organization.  It quickly returned to a boarding house, run by John M. Walsh who also leased 363 and 365 Manhattan Avenue.

After owning the houses for nearly four decades, the Ferris family sold 361 through 367 Manhattan Avenue to Samuel Polensky in October 1925.  He leased No. 367 to Cedric Whittier Root and his wife, the former Eva Bertram.  The couple had two sons, Peter H. and Edward J.  Born on May 21, 1903, Root was a radio enthusiast and installed an amateur radio "station" in the house.  The Roots remained here until at least 1928.

In 1938, 363 to 367 Manhattan Avenue were sold as a group to Sophie Malakoff for $24,000 (about $519,000 today).  They would continue to be sold together over the years, and on March 16, 1997, The New York Times reported that James Henderson had sold "the four dilapidated brownstones at 361 through 367 Manhattan Avenue" to developer Phillip H. Morrow.  The article said he and his partners "have set about to create duplex apartments with about 1,600 gross square feet of space."

Today there are two condominiums in 367 Manhattan Avenue.  Unfortunately, at some point the stained glass transoms of the parlor windows were removed, and the 1997 renovation included a shockingly inappropriate entrance door.

photographs by the author

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Robert W. Chanler's "House of Fantasy" - 147-149 East 19th Street

 

In 1843 a row of Greek Revival homes was completed along the northern side of East 19th Street between Irving Place and Third Avenue.  Three stories tall above English basements, they were faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Among them were 106 and 108 East 19th Street (renumbered 147 and 149 in 1867), both of which were operated as rooming houses by the 1890s.  

On September 19, 1910, Antoinette and George Finch purchased the two houses, which were described by the Record & Guide as "brick tenements."  Seven months later, on April 5, 1911, The Sun reported, 

George Finch is having plans prepared for turning the two four story buildings at 147 and 149 East Nineteenth street into a studio building.  The improvement is an interesting one, as it is likely to have a decided influence on the future character of this neighborhood, which at present is a tenement district.  The alteration, which will cost about $10,000, is not a speculative improvement, as the property has been leased for five years to a party whose name Mr. Finch said he could not divulge at this time.  

The mystery of the renter's identity was soon cleared up.  On April 30, 1911, a headline in The New York Times read, “'Sheriff Bob' Chanler Will Join the Colony at Gramercy Park” and the sub-headline added, “With Mrs. William Astor Chanler He Will Move to the Nineteenth Street Section, Which Has Been Charmingly Reconstructed.”

Born on February 22, 1872, Chanler had an impressive pedigree.  He was the great-great grandson of Peter Stuyvesant and the grandnephew of Julia Ward Howe, John Jacob Astor III and William Backhouse Astor, Jr.  Chanler, who had just stepped down from his position as Sheriff of Duchess County, was also a newlywed.  He married Natalina (known as Lina) Cavalieri on June 18, 1910.  She was his second wife.  His marriage to Julia Remington Chamberlain had ended in divorce in August 1907.

It was Chanler who had chosen architect Frederick Junius Sterner to combine and remodel the two houses into a residence-studio.  In 1906, the British-born architect had arrived in New York from Colorado, purchased a high-stooped brownstone on the East 19th Street block, and transformed it into a Mediterranean-style villa with a stuccoed facade and red tiled roof.  One by one, he remodeled houses Pygmalion-like to fantastic, romantic structures, resulting in what Harriett Gillespie, writing in American Homes and Gardens in 1914, would call, "the Block Beautiful."

After removing the stoops, as he did with most of his transformations, Sterner covered the facade with stucco.  Wrought iron faux balconies appeared at the second and fourth floors.  A sloped, tile roof was flanked by stepped Flemish gables.  The wooden doors with iron strap hinges that sat within brick surrounds were surmounted by tympana filled with polychrome scenes of giraffes executed by Chanler's close friend, Charles Cary Rumsey.  They were, most likely, a nod to one of Chanler's most successful paintings to date, Giraffes, which was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1905.

from the Rokeby Collection, Barrytown, New York

While 147 and 149 East 19th Street were being joined and remodeled, Chanler temporarily moved his studio into the converted carriage house down the block at 124 East 19th Street.  At the time, Current Opinion magazine called Chanler, “America’s most imaginative decorator.”  The artist’s murals decorated residences like that of William K. Vanderbilt, but they were in no way traditional.  The catalog for a later exhibition would explain, “Chanler’s career represents a series of reactions against conventions social and aesthetic.”  It said, “Surmounting in turn the inherited handicaps of family tradition and material affluence, he has won his way to a virile autonomy of thought and action which is to-day his most cherished possession.”

Lina Chanler would never move into the completed house.  The couple separated after their honeymoon and divorced in June 1912.  (Charles Green Shaw would later say, "He has been married twice and considers matrimony the greatest joke in the world.")

In the meantime, Chanler decorated what he called his House of Fantasy.  Years later, the Buffalo Evening News would comment, "His famous House of Fantasy, at 147 East 19th street, New York, is a demonstration of his eccentric nature.  The place has been rendered colorful and exotic by furnishings and decorations created by the artist to accord with his own desires rather than the routine of the conventions."

Although none of the interiors survive, contemporary accounts describe vibrant murals.  In an essay for the Vizcaya Museum and Garden's Robert Winthop Chanler, Lauren Drapala noted, "The building housed the largest collection of Chanler's work, an extensive study collection of live animals for modeling in his artwork, a vast library of rare books, and an assortment of houseguests, both friends as well as artisans in his workshop."

Robert Winthrop Chanler's 1905 painting Giraffes is presumed to be the inspiration for the tympana over the doors at 147-149 East 19th Street.  The International Studio, 1922 (copyright expired)

Members of Chanler's in-house menagerie--birds, fish, snakes and such--which he kept as models for his paintings, as well as his house pets sometimes took it on the lam.  On July 24, 1913, an ad offered a $50 reward for the return of a French bulldog.  Three years later, on July 15, 1916, the New York Herald reported, "Somewhere on Manhattan Island the small French bulldog belonging to Robert W. Chanler is making a frantic search for him."  In 1918, an ad in the Evening Telegram read, "Lost--A pink head parrot with gray body; good reward," and the following year, on March 10, an advertisement said, "Lost--A Parrot--green and yellow Macaw parrot, in neighborhood of 147 East 19th St.; generous reward."  The advertisements would continue for years.

Meanwhile, the House of Fantasy was known as much for its owner's parties as for his artwork.  Known as "Papa" to his friends ("pronounced in the French fashion," according to Charles G. Shaw's 1918 The Low-Down), Chanler threw a New Year's Eve party in 1917.  The following day, the New York Herald wrote, "A sequal to Nero's fiddle solo as Rome burned was enacted last night in a studio at No. 147 East Nineteenth street."  The New-York Tribune explained that the guests, "danced the old year out...while fire that started in a defective flue at 145 East Nineteenth Street ate its way under the floor toward them.  Some one discovered the blaze and the firemen put it out in jig time."

Interestingly, while Chanler's parties were infamous, Charles Green Shaw wrote in 1928, "In the midst of one of his parties he will sometimes sneak upstairs to his workshop and, all by himself, commence a new painting."

After renting 147-149 East 19th Street for nearly a decade, Chanler purchased the property in July 1919 for $57,000 (about $1 million in 2024).  In reporting the sale, the New York Herald remarked, "These houses were altered into what is the largest private studio in the city for Mr. Chanler about eight years ago by the sellers."

While in Europe in 1928, Chanler suffered a heart attack.  On July 29, 1929, the Buffalo [New York] Evening News reported that he had been admitted to a hospital in Kingston, New York, saying, "This is the third heart seizure within a little more than a year...His present illness has given [his friends] intense concern."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Chanler recovered, but the scare may have caused him to consider the viability of living alone in the East 19th Street house.  On June 23, 1930, the New York Sun reported that he had returned to the city from Woodstock, New York, but had gone to the apartment of Howland Spencer at 377 Park Avenue.  "Mr. Chanler closed his house at 147 East Nineteenth street last May.  An apartment house will be built on the site," said the article.

The renowned artist never had the chance to carry out that project.  He died four months later, on October 24, 1930.  

The Chanler estate sold the house in May 1945 to Nathan and Blossom Dolinsky.  The couple converted it to five apartments, many of them duplexes.  The configuration survives.  It was most likely the Dolinskys who drilled a hole through one of Charles Cary Rumsey's giraffe panels to accommodate a lamp and removed Sterner's picturesque wooden doors.  Overall, however, the 1911 appearance is intact.

many thanks to Carole Teller for prompting this post

photographs by the author

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The 1843 Rev. Edwin R. T. Cook House - 62 West 12th Street

 

image via douglaselliman.com

Attorney Daniel A. Baldwin erected an ambitious row of 16 brick-faced rowhouses in 1843 along the south side of West 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.  Each of the identical homes was three stories tall above a brownstone English basement.  The doorway was framed in an earred stone frame that upheld an entablature and cornice.  The "ears" were a popular design in domestic Greek Revival architecture (although their origins were, in fact, Egyptian).  Floor-to-ceiling windows graced the parlor level.

It appears that 62 West 12th Street was initially rented.  It was home to Edward Braun, an importer, in the late 1840s.  His family was followed by Italian diplomat Rocco Martuscelli.  He filled the house with French furniture and an exquisite art collection, detailed in an auction announcement in December 1852 as he prepared to return to Naples.  It noted the paintings, "not to be found in this country" had been "selected at great expense."  Included in the collection was Portrait of a Child by Van Dyke; a study for The Last Judgment by Michelangelo (for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel), noted as "the only one in America;" and landscapes, battle scenes and portraits by other noted artists.

James M. Sloan and his wife, the former Mary Magdalena Safford, next occupied the house.  Sloan was a partner in the drygoods firm of Gage, Sloan & Dater at 83 Chambers Street.  He died here on November 24, 1856 and his funeral was held in the parlor two days later.  Mary Sloan left soon afterward, and from 1857 through 1859, the residence was home to Joseph Park, Jr., a grocer on Sixth Avenue.

Finally, starting in 1860, the house had a long-term occupant.  It was purchased by Reverend Edwin R. T. Cook.  Living with him and his wife, Ann, was his widowed mother, Elizabeth.  Edwin and Ann had at least three children, Philena, Anna, and Robert B. M.

Rev. Cook had organized the Episcopal parish of St. John the Evangelist.  Having worshipped in a rented room for several years, in 1856 the congregation moved into the former Hammond Street Presbyterian Church, renaming it the Bishop Wainwright Memorial Church of St. John the Evangelist.  The Churchman's Monthly Magazine mentioned, "we should judge that Mr. Cook might feel himself no more than justly rewarded by this pleasant change from the upper room in which he has been officiating, to a spacious and convenient temple."

On July 24, 1865, five years after moving into the West 12th Street house, Rev. Cook died.  His funeral in the Wainwright Memorial Church "was attended by a large concourse of people," reported The New York Times on July 28, "among them a large representation of the clergy."  The article said, "Many hundreds passed around the coffin to take a farewell look of a faithful and successful minister of the gospel."

Ann M. Cook lived on at 62 West 12th Street, taking in a boarder after the death of her aged mother-in-law.  Living here in 1879 and '80, for instance, was Yoshinosuke Hasegawa, a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers.

St. Johns Guild operated a Floating Hospital and a Seaside Sanitarium, which provided health care to impoverished New Yorkers.  On March 27, 1883, the Canajoharie Courier reported that a local artist was working on a painting to be donated to a fair to benefit the two organizations "to be held at the residence of the late Rev. Edwin Cook, at No. 62 West 12th street, New York City, Wednesday, April 4th."

In the summer of 1887, the Cook house was one of four along the block that were burglarized.  On August 30, the New York Evening Telegram said, "The people in West Twelfth street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, will be glad when Captain Brogan...unravels the mystery of the several burglaries."  The reporter felt he knew who the perpetrators were.  "The gang hangs out at the corner of Eleventh street and Fifth avenue."

In 1890, Ann Cook leased the house to William C. Field.  Two years later, lecturer W. J. Colville lived here.  On February 14, 1892, he spoke at Steinert Hall on "Evolution and Christianity" and, in the evening, on "The True Ideal of Marriage."

Ann Cook got long-term renters in Harvard graduate Daniel Paine Griswold and his wife.  Like their well-heeled neighbors, the Griswolds maintained a country home.  On November 10, 1895, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Paine Griswold have returned from Stockbridge, Mass, to their house, No. 62 West Twelfth street.  Mrs. Griswold has been a great sufferer since her bicycle accident, and still has to use crutches."

The couple remained here until the spring of 1903.  On May 30, that year, The New York Times reported that Robert Cook had sold the house after its having been in the family four decades.  The buyer was the wealthy widow Mary Ann Chisholm, who maintained a summer home in College Point, Long Island.

Mary Ann Chisholm was 75 years old when she purchased the house.  According to The New York Times, she had an annual income of $300,000 a year from railroad stocks and bonds, and Manhattan real estate.  That figure would translate to a staggering $10 million in 2024.

Chisholm had four adult children, Benjamin Ogden, George E., Mary E. Schieffelin, and Margaret C. Hammersly.  Despite their being financially comfortable on their own, she provided each an income of $1,000 per month.  On April 11, George Chisholm, who was "a committee of her person and property," applied to increase her children's monthly allowances to $2,500, or nearly $83,000 in today's money.

Mary Ann Chisholm died in the West 12th Street house on May 21, 1913 at the age of 83.  The New York Sun reported that she left an estate of $5.5 million--around $175 million today.

The Chisholm estate leased the house for decades, carefully vetting the tenants.  An advertisement in the New York Evening Post in 1928, for instance, noted the 10-room, two-bath house was available to a "private family only."

The New School for Social Research began buying up houses along the block in the 1930s, including 62 West 12th Street.  In 1954, it was converted to apartments, at which time the stoop was removed.  Fifteen years later, it appeared that the end was near for the entire row.  The New School for Social Research announced plans "to tear down all the houses from 50 to 62 West 12th Street in order to build educational facilities," reported The Villager on September 4, 1969.  The article noted, "Tenants in the affected buildings plan to form a blockwide organization to demonstrate in front of the New School during registration."  City Council member Carol Grietzer introduced a bill "which would prohibit the destruction of 'sound' residential structures."

photograph by the author

The protests worked and the vintage homes were saved.  In 1985, a renovation to 62 West 12th Street returned it to a single-family home, at which time the stoop was refabricated.  The interior remodeling left none of the Greek Revival details.  It was purchased in 2013 by Robert Duffy, business partner of Marc Jacobs, for $10.25 million.  He sold it in 2017 for $9.5 million, significantly below his $12 million asking price.

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The 1937 19 East 72nd Street

 

On January 17, 1933, Louis Comfort Tiffany died in the hulking mansion he designed with Stanford White in 1882 at 898 Madison Avenue, at the northwest corner of 72nd Street.  Three years later, the Manhattan landmark was razed by attorney John Thomas Smith to make way for a 16-story apartment building.  Smith's motivation was not entirely selfish.  According to family members decades later, he wanted to provide jobs to out-of-work construction workers during the ongoing Depression.  Smith, who was general counsel and a vice president of General Motors Corporation, personally paid the $2.25 million (about $49.5 million in 2024) for the land and construction costs.

Smith hired Rosario Candela to design the structure, but, according to a grandchild who spoke to The New York Times journalist Christopher Gray in 1996, he "brought in Mott Schmidt to ride herd on Candela, who was thought too extreme, too Art Deco-y."  If Smith, indeed, wanted to tone down Candela's streamlined style, his choice of Mott, whose haughty neo-Georgian mansions on Sutton Place oozed dignity and elegance, was perfect.

Completed in 1937, the Art Moderne style building sat on a three-story base with gently sculpted limestone ogee curves.  Around the slightly recessed entrance, marble panels were carved with bas reliefs by Carl Paul Jennewein--seeming unrelated classical figures, flying putti, and various animals.  The ten-story midsection was relatively unadorned, and the top floors stair-stepped upward to provide commodious terraces.

There were just 34 apartments in the building--20 of them duplexes which ranged from 7 to 13 rooms.  Each of the 13 simplex apartments held 11 rooms.  For John Thompson Smith's family there was a triplex apartment of 21 rooms.  A decade later, builder Jesse J. Secoles recalled the apartments "have large, flat ceilings with elaborate cornices [and] fireplaces in their livings rooms and libraries."  Rents ranged from $330 to $1,000 per month--equal to $7,000 to $21,200 today.

Among the initial residents were attorney Edward Baldwin Boies and his wife, the former Helen Chapell.  The couple was married in 1914.  Helen and her neighbors appeared in society columns for their upscale entertaining.  On January 12, 1940, for instance, The New York Times announced, "Mrs. Edward B. Boies of 19 East Seventy-second Street will give a luncheon on Tuesday for Miss Sylvia Follett, a debutante of the season."

Carl Paul Jennewein's melange of images--like the dog and cat facing off on either side of the doors, and the putti flying about a compass rose--has puzzled architectural historians for decades.

Eleanor Grant Bosher Brewster and her daughter Frances were also early residents.  Eleanor's husband, George Stepenson Brewster, had been of the largest shareholders of the Standard Oil Company, and a member of The Jekyll Island Club.  It was on Jekyll Island that he died on March 11, 1936.  The Brewsters' summer home was in Oyster Bay, Long Island.

On March 29, 1941, Eleanor announced Frances's engagement to R. Stewart Rauch, Jr.   In reporting the event, The Brooklyn Citizen remarked that Frances "attended the Brearley and Foxcroft Schools and was introduced to society in Manhattan in 1933."

John Thomas Smith and his family summered in Southampton.  The erudite businessman was fluent in German, Spanish and French and, according to family members, read Greek and Latin.  He died in 1947 and two years later the Smith estate converted the building to co-ops.

The apartment of Arthur Wallace Pope and his wife, the former Josephine Marie Auguste, was the scene of the wedding of their daughter, Virginia Pope MacLean to Robert Bruce Dickson on September 9, 1964.  Like Frances Brewster, Virginia had a privileged upbringing.  The New York Times noted she "attended the Brearley School and was graduated from the Garrison Forest School.  She attended Bradford Junior College, and was presented at the Junior League Ball."  The at-home ceremony was somewhat understated because it was the second marriage of both parties.

Well-heeled residents in the second half of the century included N. Baxter Jackson and his wife, Judith Dohme.  Jackson retired as chairman of the board of Chemical Bank in 1956, remaining on as a director until 1968.  Born in 1891, his service in World War I earned him the Medal of Merit and his being named to the French Legion of Honor.  He was a member of the committees that chose the sites for the United Nations in Manhattan and at Lake Success, Long Island.

Jack I. Straus, who lived here with his wife Margaret Hollister by the 1960s, was chairman of the executive committee of R. H. Macy & Co., Inc. and its former chairman and C.E.O.

Minot K. Milliken and his wife, Armene L., had five adult children.  The treasurer and CFO of Milliken & Company, the largest privately owned textile company in the United States, he was, as well, a director of the National Distillers, Mercantile Stores, the Irving Bank of New York and the Union Pacific Railroad.  For many years he was chairman of the board of the Boys Club of New York.

But it was Milliken's position as president of the co-op board that would land him in the national spotlight in 1979.  When former President Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, initially made a down payment on the nine-room penthouse owned by Robert A. Becker, there seemed to be no problem.  The New York Times reported on July 28,  "This apartment is said to include three master bedrooms and two servants' rooms."  The article continued, "although the Nixons had not yet taken title, there appeared little doubt, 'barring a broken cup at the lip,' that Mr. and Mrs. Nixon would become residents of the building."

But as it turned out, there was a rub.  Although the co-op board approved the Nixons' application, the other residents were not so quick.  Milliken's letter informing them of their potential new neighbor sparked a return letter signed by 14 residents expressing their opposition.  Simultaneously, according to The New York Times on August 3, "a lawyer representing several of the residents...had been in contact on several occasions with a lawyer for the former President, to let Mr. Nixon know that he faced opposition."

On August 2, 1979, Minot Milliken sent a new letter to the residents that read, "Please be advised that former President Nixon and Mr. Becker have agreed to cancel the contract relating to Mr. Becker's apartment.  Mr. Becker's apartment is once again on the market."

In 1996, a $1 million exterior restoration was begun.  It included roof replacement, repairs and cleaning of the limestone, and window replacement "at shareholder discretion," according to co-op president Cary Koplin.  (Minot Milliken had died in November 1998.)  Importantly, as John Thompson Smith had demanded in 1936, no commercial spaces were carved into the base in the renovations.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

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The 1897 William Stubner House - 311 West 91st Street

 

Clarence F. True was among the most prolific architects working on the Upper West in the late 19th century.  He was hired by developers Smith & Stewart in 1896 to design a row of seven upscale houses along the northern side of West 91st Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  The neighborhood was already filling with substantial homes and True's Renaissance Revival residences would follow suit.

Completed in 1897, the 25-foot wide homes were four-and-a-half stories high and faced in limestone.  No. 311 featured a bowed front faced in rough-cut stone above the planar base.  The columned portico provided a stone railed balcony to the second floor.  Handsome carved shells filled the tympana above the second floor openings.  The dormers of the mansard level were capped with graceful swan's neck pediments.  Inside were eleven main rooms, three tiled bathrooms, and three servants' rooms.  

In June 1897, Smith & Stewart sold 311 West 91st Street to William F. Stubner.  He and his wife, the former Elizabeth Jane Ringland (known as Liza), had one son, Christian James.   

Stubner was an early enthusiast of motorized transportation and owned both an automobile and a motorcycle.  He entered his cycle in the five-mile national championship race on November 3, 1908 at Morris Park in the Bronx, coming in third.

In February 1911, William joined with Harold F. Bidwell and Kennedy Conklin to form the Bidwell-Conklin Corp., described by Motor Age magazine as a "motor car business."  But his passion got him and his next door neighbor, John W. Brewer, in trouble later that year, on September 22.  The Daily Star reported that the pair "were each fined $3 for speeding on their motor cycles."  The fine would equal just under $85 today.

The nation closely followed the progress of the Transcontinental Motorcycle Relay Dispatch in 1915.  With World War I raging in Europe, the Government hoped the potential importance of the motorcycle in wartime would be proven by a relay from Washington D.C. to San Francisco.  President Woodrow Wilson provided one team with a message and the Department of War gave another to the second team.  

Three of the drivers in the 1915 relay.  National Photo Company Collection

Stubner not only participated in the event, but stood out.  His team carried the message from the President.  On July 21, 1915, the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News reported on its progress from Washington to Albany.  After describing the problems of a severe thunderstorm the team had overcome, the article noted, "Their going, however, was not marked by the variety of speed that William F. Stubner, the Gotham lad, showed when he came through Market Street Monday evening at the rate of seventy-five miles an hour."

In the meantime, Christian was looking for work in 1914.  He advertised in the New York Herald in December seeking a position as a stenographer or "correspondent."  The ad read, "clean cut young man, thoroughly experienced in office detail, has decided to improve position and desires to connect with reliable concern."

The Stubners sold 311 West 91st Street to Dr. William A. Heckard and his wife, Emilie, in November 1921.  A dentist, Heckert had graduated from the Philadelphia Dental College in 1889.  

In 1897, Heckard patented a remarkable device that kept track of incoming phone calls.  He explained to The Indianapolis News on March 4 the following year:

The idea of my device is this: You are a physician, or lawyer, or business man.  You go away from your office or business place, and to make sure of telephone calls that may come in your absence, you turn a button.  My device is attached, and when you return you will find the number of your telephone caller, or callers, duly registered on a strip of paper attached to an apparatus like a "ticker."

Emilie was William's second wife.  Katherine R. Heckard had sued for divorce in May 1915 claiming "abandonment and nonsupport."  The "wealthy dentist" as he was described by The Cincinnati Enquirer, had moved to New York ten years earlier, leaving his wife and child in Indiana.  Katherine was granted $12,000 alimony (about $375,000 in 2024 terms) and, not surprisingly, custody of their 16-year-old daughter.

During the war Heckard had been commissioned a lieutenant in the Army and was the camp dental surgeon at Chillicothe, Ohio.  He never gave up his military affiliation and while living in the 91st Street house held the rank of colonel.  He served as the dental surgeon at the Medical Headquarters of the 12th Corps. in New York.

Following Heckard's retirement, he and Emilie moved to East Quogue, New York.  On April 14, 1934, The New York Sun reported that Heckard had leased the 91st Street house to Richard Shill.  The article noted "The house is to be occupied for club purposes."  If, indeed, the property was used as a clubhouse, it did not last long.  In 1935, the title was surrendered to the Bowery Savings Bank.  In January 1937, the bank sold it to Armand Gardos.

Gardos operated it as a rooming house.  Most of the elegant rooms in which the Stubners had entertained became bedrooms.  A tenant, Lynn Burgess, who had lived here as a child in the 1960's later described the former dining room, calling it a "great room."

The great room had very high ceilings, I think the first and second [floors] did have extremely high ceilings.  The great room, one side of the wall had an enormous mirror, covering almost the entire wall on the right-hand side.  It was laid into a very thick dark wood frame.  It was enormous.  To the right of that room was a bedroom.

 The bedroom she mentioned was the Stubner's former parlor.

A renovation completed in 1968 essentially gutted the Clarence True interiors.  It resulted in one apartment each on the three lower floors and a duplex above.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Queen Insurance Building - 37-39 Wall Street

 

Real Estate Record & Guide "Office Building Supplement" June 25, 1898 (copyright expired)

The Queen Insurance Company was chartered in Liverpool, England in 1857.  It had a branch in London in 1877 when it broke ground for a New York office at 37-39 Wall Street.  The firm had commissioned Clinton & Pirsson (composed of Charles W. Clinton and James W. Pirrson) to design the New York headquarters.  It was the first commission of up-and-coming contractor David H. King, Jr., who would go on to erect iconic structures like the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Square Arch.

Clinton & Pirsson designed a striking six-story, Ruskinian Gothic structure faced in red brick.  The top floor took the form an elaborate mansard with a pyramid-capped tower with paired arches supported by polished granite columns, and a somewhat Egyptian-shaped gable fronted by an ornate dormer.

On May 16, 1878, The New York Times applauded, "One of the most attractive buildings in Wall-street, or in the City, for that matter, is the handsome ornamented structure just completed and in part occupied by the Queen Insurance Company...Built of brick, stone, and iron, it rises six stories above a basement, and is at once substantial and ornamental."  

The Record & Guide, on the same day, called the building "well deserving of special notice."  The article described the colorful materials in detail, saying the granite basement was "elaborately carved" and that the:

...first story windows are of polished red granite, supported by piers of Wyoming blue stone and columns of black granite with richly carved capitals and bases of Wyoming blue stone, over which an arch is extending, covering the windows of the first story front, composed again of Wyoming blue stone and New Jersey brown stone.

Inset into the tympanum of the arch over the entrance was a bronze bust of Queen Victoria.  The third through fifth floors were clad in red brick, which contrasted with the various colored stone.  "The openings are arched with alternate brown and gray stone, and the jambs are finished with black and red polished granite," reported The New York Times.  "The facade is elaborately carved."

The Queen Insurance Company offices occupied the bottom two floors as well as the top floor.  Its offices were finished in mahogany, while the upper floors were done in maple and cherry.  "The first story hall including the first flight of stairs, are wainscoted with two and three different kinds of foreign and domestic marble," said the Record & Guide.  The New York Times described the fireplace in the Queen Insurance Company's Director's Room saying, "The mantel is an art study."

The top floor was used partly for document files.  There were also the Queen Insurance executives' dining room, and an apartment for the janitor and his family.  The New York Times commented, "From the dining-room, a superb view is obtained of the City and Bay."

The Record & Guide assured that the building was fireproof, and even the stairs were of iron.  But, said the article, "in such a building very little use is made of the stairs, one of Otis's finest elevators has been provided; with a handsomely ornamented car."  It ended its article saying, "The architects may well be proud of the work they have placed before the business community of New York."

An advertisement in The Evening Post in November 1880 listed the Queen Insurance Company's United States assets at $1,635,027 (about $50.3 million in 2024).  The firm leased offices on the third through fifth floors to various tenants, like the banking firm of Kelley & Little; the Commercial Union Insurance Company; and law offices, like those of Hathaway & Montgomery.

The cover of a brochure featured a depiction of the building.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Working for the Queen Insurance Company in 1887 was W. B. Schuyler.  The Sun described him as "about 28 years old, well built, and of a fine appearance."  Schuyler got into some sort of trouble in the early part of 1887--serious enough to make him desperate.  At 1:00 on the morning of March 4, Schuyler (who lived on Lexington Avenue) checked into the Harlem Hotel on Third Avenue at 115th Street with no bags.  He did not go to work that day, but remained in the room.  The Sun reported, "The maid heard him snoring, and gave up trying to wake him."

The next day, when she knocked on the door there was no answer.  She informed the proprietor, who used his pass key.  Schuyler was dead on the bed.  On the table were two one-ounce vials labelled laudanum, an opiate popular at the time with those intending to kill themselves.  A unsent letter was found addressed to Horace Maillard, which said he was in trouble, "but hoped to pull through," according to The Sun.

Three months after that tragedy, on June 18, 1887, the Record & Guide reported that the Queen Insurance Company had sold its building to the Metropolitan Trust Company for $450,000 (just under $15 million today).  

When the Metropolitan Trust Company was formed in 1881, "it occupied a single room at 41 Pine street, with a force of four people," according to Trust Companies in July 1921.  Within only five months its growth forced it to move to larger quarters, and in 1884 had to move again, to 35 Wall Street, next door to the Queens Insurance Company.

Although the Metropolitan Trust Company purchased 37-39 Wall Street in June 1887, the Queen Insurance Company did not vacate for nearly a year.  And the timing could not have been worse for the new owners.  Trust Companies recalled, "During the great blizzard of 1888, the company transferred its business to its own building next door, at 37-39 Wall street."

As its predecessor had done, the Metropolitan Trust Company leased offices in the building.  Among the tenants in the 1890s were attorney Henry Daily, Jr., and the newly formed Corporation Trust Company, incorporated in 1893. 

from the collection of the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive of the Art Institute Chicago.

On June 17, 1905, the Record & Guide printed a one-line article saying that the Metropolitan Trust Company had sold its building to William H. Chesebrough.  The New York Times was more detailed, saying that the price was said to have been about $1,000,000," and that the true purchasers were "probably...Charles W. Morse and his associates."  The article noted that the building, "is not likely to be disturbed for the present, but with the control of this property, it is pointed out, Mr. Morse and his associates will be in a position to erect at any time a new building."

Less than a year later, on May 20, 1906, the New-York Tribune reported that 37-39 Wall Street and its neighbor at 41 and 43 Wall Street were "being torn down to make way for a new twenty-five story skyscraper."  Francis Kimball's 37 Wall Street, completed the following year, survives.

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Charles E. Birge's 1908 290 Fifth Avenue

 

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, millionaires had ventured north of 23rd Street along Fifth Avenue, erecting opulent mansions.  Three blocks south of the John Jacob Astor III and William Backhouse Astor residences, which filled the western blockfront between 33rd and 34th Streets, was the home of John J. Osborne, at 290 Fifth Avenue.

There was upheaval within the Osborne's domestic staff in the winter of 1865.  On December 10, the French butler, George Sausen, had the cook arrested for grand larceny.  The New York Times reported that Matilda Cassidy "stole three bottles of wine, valued at $16, and $35 in cash...The wine was the property of her employer, while the money belonged to two of the female servants in the house."  The wine was found in Matilda's room and the cash "in her pocket."

The days of smart broughams at the curb and butlers at the door were over by the turn of the century.  Mansions were razed or converted for business.  In March 1906, Irving E. Raymond leased the converted Osborne mansion.  The Real Estate Record & Guide reported that he would build a 12-story business building "in connection with Nos. 286 and 288 5th av., which are owned by Mr. Raymond."

Irving E. Raymond was president of A. A. Vantine & Co., dealers in Oriental rugs and carpets.  Perhaps because Isabel C. Nash refused to sell 290 Fifth Avenue in 1908--instead renewing Raymond's lease (this time for 21 years)--Raymond rethought the plan to build a large office building on a site that was only two-thirds owned by him.

Instead, in March his architect, Charles E. Birge, filed plans for a six-story "brick and stone office building" at 290 Fifth Avenue that would cost Raymond $40,000 to erect--about $1.37 million in 2024 terms.

The completed building was as much glass as it was masonry.  Five stories of metal infill allowed for vast tripart windows that flooded the interiors with natural light.  A terra cotta frame of ornate tiles embraced the upper floors.  Below the deeply overhanging cornice was an elaborate frieze of terra cotta.

Among the initial tenants were Paul Block, Inc. and Ph. Weinberg's Sons & Co.  Paul Block had started his advertising agency in 1900 and incorporated in 1908.  It was the exclusive national advertising representative for a number of newspapers and magazines.  By the time the firm moved into 290 Fifth Avenue, it had branch offices in Boston and Chicago.

Ph. Weinberg's Son & Co., "makers of fine furs," was reflective of the high-end shops along Fifth Avenue.  The store offered a wide variety of items, from mink neckpieces with "muff to match," to Alaska seal coats priced at $800 in 1909 (a staggering $27,300 in today's money).  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 21, 1909 listed three types of "automobile" coats: a ladies' coat, "coats for chauffeurs," and natural raccoon coats.

In 1912, Ph. Weinberg's Sons & Co. was succeeded by Grace Co.  It continued to do business from the address, and assured customers, "the old policy of high quality and a new policy of low prices will prevail."

In the meantime, the upper floors filled with apparel firms.  In 1914, Freeman Brothers hatters leased the third floor and in 1916 L. Lyman & Co., makers of dresses and headwear for children, and Alexander A. Bernstein, an importer and manufacturer of furs, took space.  

Alexander A. Bernstein, who was born in Plock, Poland in February 1880, was an interesting figure.  According to Distinguished Jews of America in 1917, he was "as a youngster an efficient cantor, and when he came here he was probably the first boy to officiate at services with the assistance of a choir."

Alexander A. Bernstein.  Distinguished Jews of America, 1917 (copyright expired)

One congregant of Bernstein's synagogue on Henry Street, "took a fancy to him, introduced him to some gentlemen connected with the fur industry, and he drifted into the line."  It signaled the beginning of Bernstein's business career and the end of his singing.

In 1916, the same year that L. Lyman & Co. and Alexander A. Bernstein moved in, Samuel Schwartz Sons & Co., "pictures," signed a lease on the ground floor store.  The gallery staged exhibitions over the coming years, like the showing of more than 60 etchings by Frank Brangwyn that opened in March 1918.

The 1920s saw the building still filled with apparel firms, most of them makers of dresses, coats and suits.  From the mid-1930s into the 1940s the Tenth Assembly District Republican Organization had its offices in the building.  Reminiscent of Irving E. Raymond, the Persian Mercantile Co. and the Anglo Persian Mercantile Co., importers of Iranian rugs, operated from the address at the time.

The cornice survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the third quarter of the century, the Garment District had moved past 34th Street and this section of Fifth Avenue was filled with garish shops and often transitory businesses.  Among the tenants of 290 Fifth Avenue in 1988 was The Skin & Hair Rejuvenation Center, which offered Minoxidil/Retin-A treatments that promised to "regrow fuller and more-youthful new hair."

At some point the cornice was removed and the storefront remodeled.  But, overall, Charles E. Birge's 1908 design survives surprisingly intact.

photographs by the author

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