The 1917 No. 92 Grove Street

The building's position facing Christopher Park assured sunlight and fresh air -- photo by Alice Lum

For three violent days in July 1863 New York City was terrorized by what became known as the Draft Riots.   To augment troops fighting the Civil War, a new law had been enacted to draft men into the army.  But corrupt practitioners focused on the working class—primarily Irish immigrants—while the wealthy bought their way out of service.

What started as a protest against the draft quickly disintegrated into a bloody race riot with innocent blacks being strung up from lampposts, shot and stabbed.  As the rabble headed towards normally-quiet Greenwich Village the daring owner of No. 92 Grove Street took action.  A number of local black citizens were hidden in his basement as the rampaging mob swept the streets.

No. 92 was a tidy, three-story Greek Revival home built several years after its nearest neighbors.  Because it faced the open, triangular park formed by Christopher, Grove and West Fourth Streets, and because the lot next door at No. 94 was undeveloped, its owners enjoyed ample sunlight and air. 

The brick-clad residence was home to respectable middle-class residents for decades, including Mary E. Wright, a teacher in Primary School No. 16 in 1875.

By the time World War I erupted in Europe, Greenwich Village had changed.  It was the center of bohemian culture in New York, drawing artists, musicians and writers to its quaint streets.  Bistros and coffee shops cropped up in artsy basement spaces as did modern apartment buildings that replaced aging houses.

In 1915 No. 92 (left) still survived.  Millionaire socialist James Graham Phelps Stokes was living at No. 88 (right) and his sister, Helen Olivia Phelps Stokes, was in the middle house at No. 90 --photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1916 the Cozine-Warren Company initiated plans for an up-to-date apartment on the site of No. 92 and the vacant lot next door.  Architect Andrew J. Thomas was commissioned to design the six-story structure that was completed in 1917.  The architect used variegated brick on the upper five stories.  His straight-forward approach to fenestration resulted in an understated arrangement of windows and fire doors at each level.  Two double-hung windows flanking French doors opened onto Juliette balconies on the top four stories.  To the right, normally ungainly fire exit doors opened onto metal fire escapes which, because they matched the width of the window groupings, provided a visual balance to an otherwise asymmetrical design.

photo by Alice Lum

To support it all Thomas provided a Mediterranean-inspired base.   A Doric arcade of graceful windows and two flanking doors—one the building’s entrance the other the service access to the basement—provided an Old World touch to the already-scenic street.

photo by Alice Lum

The design was well received and in 1918 the American Institute of Architects awarded Cozine-Warren a medal in the category of apartment buildings six stories or under.

The building filled with a variety of tenants.  William W. Norton was one of the first tenants.  He was Assistant Paymaster for the United States Army; and W. W. Taylor was a steward of the New York Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1918.

The new No. 92 Grove Street is seen towards the left.  The two 19th century buildings at the near corner would soon be gone. --photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

One of the building’s most outspoken and visible tenants in the early years was Mrs. Marion Booth Kelley.  While it was largely women who managed to twist the government’s arm in enacting Prohibition, Marion Booth Kelley was not one of them.  The Chairman of the Campaign Committee of the Women’s National Republic Club, she was vehemently anti-Prohibition; or as the newspapers deemed her, “a wet.”

When public protest against Prohibition gained national attention in 1926, Marion was ready to make her feelings known.   At a meeting of the Club on November 2 she announced “The large affirmative vote on the prohibition referendum is an encouraging protest on the part of the people of the Empire State against the corruption, hypocrisy and the train of evils following in the wake of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act.”

Marion Booth Kelley lived in the building (center) when this shot was taken in 1928.  A tall apartment building is under construction at the corner of Grove Street and West 4th -- photo NYPL Collection

The resolute Kelley would travel to Albany, Washington DC and throughout the East Coast rallying support in her campaign for years.  No doubt firmly behind her cause was May McCabe who also lived in the building.   On June 20, 1930 The New York Times reported on the arrest of Irving Robin, a 33-year old seaman whom the newspaper deemed a “bogus bootlegger.”

“Robin, an ex-convinct, is charged by Miss May McCabe of 92 Grove Street with inducing her to pay $805 for several cases of weak port wine and water represented as liquor,” reported the newspaper.

Earlier that year Marion Booth Kelley had ranted against the results of Prohibition saying that it took “the liquor traffic out of the hands of lawful agencies and put it into the hands of lawless, unregulated and irresponsible groups.”

By August 1933, with repeal of Prohibition clearly in sight, Marion had risen to the position of legislative chairman of the New York State Division of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform.  She had firmly established herself as a force to be reckoned with and had the ear of the Albany lawmakers.

While Marion Booth Kelley was busy fighting Prohibition and May McCabe was discovering she had been taken by a bootlegger, Sidney Joseph Perelman was living in the building.  On July 4, 1929 he married Laura West, the sister of novelist Nathanael West and the newlyweds immediately moved in.

The witty and brilliant writer would be a contributor to The New Yorker for nearly half a century, and was scriptwriter for the Marx Brothers.  He was responsible for their films “Monkey Business” and “Horse Feathers.”

A friend of the equally witty and rapacious Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman described himself as “button-cute, rapier-keen, cucumber-cool and gall-bitter.”   Years later the editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, called him a “master of the English language and no one has put the language to more stunning comic use than he did.”

A virtuoso of language and comedy, he wrote the stage version of “One Touch of Venus” in 1943 and collaborated with Mike Todd on the zany 1956 film “Around the World in 80 Days.”

By mid-century another noted writer was living here.  Lucien Carr made his living as a United Press reporter; but his influence went far beyond journalism.  In 1976 Aaron Latham, writing in New York Magazine said “The father of the Beat Generation was not Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsburg or William Burroughs.  It was Lucien Carr.  He was the one who brought the others together.  He was the one the others revered.  He was the one the others expected to change America.”

Parties in the Carr apartment were legendary.  One guest at a New Year’s Eve party in 1956 remarked “The Lucien I met was a thirty-one-year-old man…who got up every morning and went to an editing job and had an awfully nice wife and two towheaded little boys in blue pajamas who came and said good-night to everyone at the party…That was the extent of the wildness of the evening, which probably would have been much less subdued, everyone agreed, if Jack [Kerouac] had been there.”

Indeed, Kerouac spent much time in the Carr apartment, staying for weeks on end sometimes.  He called it the most beautiful apartment in the city and described it in his Desolation Angels.  “A small balcony overlooking all the neons and trees of Sheridan Square, and a kitchen refrigerator full of ice cubes and coke to go with ye old Partners Choice whiskey-boo.”

One of these little balconies was included in Kerouac's description -- photo by Alice Lum

While the Greenwich Village neighborhood has changed character through the past century, the building at No. 92 Grove Street—home to writers, political activists and regular New Yorkers-- has not.  

thanks to reader Karmijt Sangha for requesting this post

The 1916 Mehlin Piano Building -- No. 4 East 43rd Street

Although by 1910 Fifth Avenue was changing and millionaires had begun migrating northward along the park, Richard T. Wilson, head of the banking firm R. T. Wilson & Co. stubbornly stayed on in his mansion at No. 511 Fifth Avenue, at the southeast corner of 43^rd Street.  Forgotten today, Wilson was a major player in New York society at the turn of the century.   The 80-year old financier summered in Newport and his five children had all been paired off in socially-prominent marriages.

His son, Orme, married young Caroline Astor; Lelie Belle became Lady Herbert, wife of the former British Ambassador; Richard T. Jr. married Marion Mason of Boston; May married the fabulously wealthy Ogden Goelet and Grace became Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Part of Wilson’s property, separated by a service alley to the rear, was the mansion at No. 4 East 43^rd Street.   James B. Ford, a bachelor whose fortune was estimated by The Sun at between $12 and $15 million, lived in the house in the winter season.  In the warm months he live mostly on his yacht, the Katrina.

On November 26, 1910 Richard Wilson died in the house at No. 511 Fifth Avenue.    His family soon discussed how to dispose of the valuable midtown property.   The little ten-foot alley separating the two mansions was a problem.  If the heirs could close up the gap, the entire corner lot could be sold as a much more valuable building site.

The family tried in vain to eliminate the alley.  Defeated, they sold the two lots separately.  The survival of the tiny alley would make a marked difference in the structure that replaced the 43^rd Street mansion.

Finally on November 20, 1915, with James B. Ford still living in there, the sale of “the old four story residence at 4 East Forty-third Street,” was announced in The New York Times.   Construction was already underway for a 16-story building replacing Wilson’s Fifth Avenue mansion.    The 43^rd Street house would follow suit soon.

Klein & Jackson purchased the site for $150,000 and had already developed plans for a 6-story commercial structure.    Andrew J. Thomas was commissioned to design the building with the principal tenant being the Mehlin Piano Company.   Thomas outdid himself.

In 2012 restoration of the neglected building neared completion.

Clad in gleaming white marble and completed the following year, it was an Italian Renaissance beauty that took full advantage of the exposed western façade provided by the service alley.  Mehlin’s showrooms were two-stories tall with a mezzanine that Thomas flooded with daylight by the inclusion of two double-height Gothic-arched show windows.  These were flanked by matching entrance openings.

Architecture and Building published a photograph of the new building in 1917 -- copyright expired

Graceful Italian balconies graced the second floor and a columned arcade wrapped along the sixth story.  Intricate carvings, including a frieze of cherub heads between the first and second floor adorned the dignified façade.

Inside Thomas embellished the showroom with intricate plaster ceilings.  A recital hall was included for concerts on the Mehlin instruments.   On February 29, 1918, for instance, Florence Nelson gave a recital here.  The singer had been devoting much of her time to the war-relief effort and had sung “in all the camps since the first weeks of the enlistment,” according to The Sun.

A mezzanine provided office space for Mehlin Pianos.  Apparently, from the photo, they sold Victrolas as well -- Architecture and Building 1917 (copyright expired)

The offices in the higher floors were leased to a variety of tenants, including the esteemed architectural firm of Hoppin & Koen.   The architects were noted for their elaborate Beaux Arts mansions as well as monumental civic buildings like the Police Headquarters on Centre Street.  

Victory Hall had its headquarters here for several years.     Here the organization laid plans for a permanent memorial of the same name to the men and women of New York who served in the war.  In 1921 the association was busy planning the city’s Armistice Day celebrations.  Theodore Roosevelt was to preside and The New York Tribune reported that “1,000 gold star mothers would take part in the services.”  A chorus of 1,000 school children would sing before the main event of the day:  President Harding’s Armistice Day address from Arlington Cemetery, “by means of the long distance telephone and a new amplifying device.”

Things would not go as smoothly for the Mehlin Piano Company.  Despite its 20-year lease, the firm was gone by 1921.  That year Columbia Mortgage Company moved in and immediately began referring to its new address as The Columbia Mortgage Company Building.   The following year the firm purchased the building which The Times said “has long been regarded as one of the architectural masterpieces of the Grand Central Terminal zone.”  The mortgage firm felt that “the floor space will be sufficient for the company for some time to come.”

Perhaps not surprisingly the Columbia University Club established its headquarters here.  Other firms came and went, like the Harrison Granite Company which was here in 1925.

Tucked around the corner from Fifth Avenue the charming white marble building went mainly unnoticed throughout the second half of the century.   In the late 1940s Hobby Corner wooed young readers of Boys’ Life Magazine with its advertisements for Jet Propulsion Plane Kits for $2.35 (a special Scout discount of 20% was available with the mailed-in coupon); real estate agent Louis Kramer moved here in 1946 after over 30 years at No. 103 Park Avenue, and the Mycro Camera Company distributed the Miracle Mycro camera “less than half the size of a pack of cigarettes.”

Things were going just fine in 1961 when the law and accounting firm of Goldstein, Lewis & Lubell took office space in the building.

But then things went wrong.

After the turn of the 21^st century the building was inexplicitly abandoned.  Boarded up (and in some areas cemented up) the gracious marble façade sat for years deteriorating and abused.  The cherubs and balconies eroded from pollution and neglect and large cracks developed in the stone from lack of maintenance.

The balconies are severely eroded and the carvings--like the festoon-holding cherubs above the window--have lost their faces and details.

Then in June 2012 the firm Van Pok & Chang purchased the building for $6.3 million.   While the deteriorating building could have been easily razed and replaced, the company, owned by Omega Chang, a real estate investment firm, announced it would restore the exterior and renovate the structure as a boutique hotel.  The make-over is expected to cost over $2 million.



The band of chubby-cheeked cherubs is barely discernable.

The little marble gem that The New York Times in 1922 called an “architectural masterpiece” has been saved from what was an almost assured demolition.

non-credited photographs taken by the author