The Jennie Kelso Ewell House - 47 East 74th Street

 

Prolific real estate developer Jeremiah C. Lyons began construction on a row of eight five-story dwellings on East 74th Street between Park and Madison Avenues in 1898.  The architectural firm of Buchman & Deisler had designed them in two balanced groupings of four--A-B-B-A and C-B-B-C.  The westernmost house, an A model at 47 East 74th, was a dignified neo-Renaissance style residence faced in limestone.

A Doric portico upheld a two-story faceted bay decorated with a broken pediment at the second floor and crowned with a carved stone balcony.  The fifth floor sat between an intermediate cornice and the bracketed pressed metal terminal cornice. 

Lyons sold 47 East 74th Street in 1899 to Moses Newborg, the president of Newborg & Co., brokers.  It is unclear whether he and his family ever lived in the house, but in April the following year he resold it to Jennie Kelso Ewell.  The daughter of Andrew Varick Stout, president of the Shoe and Leather Bank, she had married his partner, John Newton Ewell, who  had died in 1885.  The couple had two children, Douglass Ewell (who died in 1897) and Caroline Elizabeth, known as Carrie.

Jennie's summer estate was in Northeast Harbor, Maine.  She shared it and the East 74th Street house with Caroline and her husband, DeWitt Parshall.  The couple had been married in a fashionable Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church ceremony on November 20, 1895.  Born in 1864, Parshall was a landscape artist.

Pashall's Grand Canyon is typical of his works.

Among Jennie's faithful servants was her coachman, Charles Heil, hired in 1885.  When she gave up her horses for a motorcar, he learned to drive and stayed on as her chauffeur.  On the evening of November 15, 1909 he took the Pashalls to dinner, and was returning to the Lenox Garage on East 74th Street when disaster occurred.

At Lexington Avenue and 75th Street, 9-year-old Joseph O'Connor darted into the street into the path of the automobile.  Although Heil was going "at a moderate rate of speed," according to a witness, he "was on the wrong side of the street and had no lights."  The New York Times reported, "The front wheel of the machine passed over the boy's head before the chauffeur brought it to a stop.  Jumping out, Heil lifted the boy up and carried him to the sidewalk.  Then, apparently becoming panic-stricken with fright, he threw the boy down, jumped back into his machine, and put on full power."

Bystanders called for him to stop, and O'Connor's playmates ran after the vehicle to get the license number.  Police easily traced it to Jennie Ewell and to the Lenox Garage.  There they found Heil "completely unnerved and weeping bitterly."  He claimed he had hurried to the garage to get help.  He was arrested on a charge of felonious assault.

Jennie Ewell told a reporter that in the 24 years he had been in her employ, he had never had an accident.  Nevertheless, the press coverage was not kind to the 51-year-old.  The New York Times headline read, "Boy Left dying By Fleeing Autoist."

It was Carrie who appeared in the society pages most often.  On February 19, 1910, for instance, the New York Herald announced, "Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt Pashall gave a reception yesterday afternoon at their home, No. 47 East Seventy-fifth street."

Jennie Kelso Stout Ewell died in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on July 26, 1916 at the age of 73.  Her funeral was held there and her body returned to New York and buried in Greenwood Cemetery.  She left an estate of over $7.5 million by today's conversion, all of which went to Carrie.

The Pashalls remained in at 47 East 74th Street until May 1920 when Carrie sold it to railroad executive Herbert N. Curtis.  The Pashalls moved to Santa Barbara, California.  

It was not long before Curtis's name appeared in the papers for a surprising and, perhaps, shocking reason.  On March 18, 1921 the 67-year-old bachelor appeared before Surrogate Judge Cohalan in hopes of adopting Mary Lois Fox "a professional entertainer, 29 years old," according to The New York Times.  He explained, according to the newspaper, "he met Miss Fox six years ago through his sister and that she taught him modern dancing steps for two years.  He has assisted her in placing negro songs before the public, he said."  Curtis told the judge he "wants to make her his foster daughter, he says, that she may be a comfort to him in his old age."

Judge Cohalan refused saying, "If that is your reason for wanting to adopt this young woman you won't do it with the aid of this court.  It is a parody on all laws of society, and if I were to be a party to such an adoption we would have a lot of old roues coming in here wanting to adopt young girls."

Mary Fox's attorney chimed in, saying that "the elderly man's interest in her was purely platonic and that his attitude had always been that of a father."  He said that Mary "expected to be married soon" and hoped to be able to treat Curtis "as her father and to have him live with her and her husband."  Mary Fox interjected that she "met him in a church choir."

Cohalan was unmoved.  The New York Times reported that he "decided that Miss Fox should wait until after her marriage and then she could either become the foster daughter of Mr. Curtis or she could adopt him as her son."

Curtis leased the house for the winter season of 1924-25.  On October 6, 1924 The New York Telegram and Evening Mail reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Parmentier will close their country place at Greenwich, Conn. this week, and will occupy for the winter the house at No. 47 East Seventy-fourth street."

The house was sold in 1945.  It saw a series of residents over the next decades, until being converted to apartments, two per floor, in 1999.

photographs by the author

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The Benno Neuberger House - 55 East 74th Street

 

In 1898 the prolific real estate developer Jeremiah C. Lyons began construction on a row of eight five-story dwellings on East 74th Street between Park and Madison Avenues.  His architects, Buchman & Deisler, design them in two balanced groupings of four--A-B-B-A and C-B-B-C.  Among the C models was 55 East 74th, a dignified neo-Renaissance style residence faced in limestone.

Above a short stoop, the entrance sat within a handsome portico upheld by Scamozzi columns.  The pierced balcony railing at the second floor flowed into the continuous balustrade along the row.  An arched, cartouche-filled pediment sat above the center door at this level.  The bowed facade ended at the third floor, providing a stone railed balcony to the fourth.

Construction would be completed in spring of 1899, but Benno Neuberger did not wait that long.  On February 9, 1899 The Sun reported that he had purchased 55 East 74th Street "in course of construction."

Neuberger was born in Bremen, Germany in 1866 and came to New York in 1881.  He was the senior member of the tobacco firm of E. Rosenwald & Brother.  Highly involved with Jewish charities, he was the president of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, as well.  He and his wife, the former Stella Mayer, had two children, Florence Edna and Harry Hobson.  Moving in with the family was Stella's widowed mother, Fredricka Mayer.

Like their neighbors, the Neubergers filled the house with costly furnishings and decorations.  An inventory listed "an Aubusson tapestry suite of five pieces," an Aubusson tapestry fire screen, and Eduardo Leon Garrido's modern painting The Masque Ball, appraised at $8,000 by today's conversion.  Neuberger's German roots may have prompted him to buy a Benz automobile rather than an American-made vehicle.  It cost him $2,000, the equivalent of $53,400 in today's money.

from Empire State Notables, 1914 (copyright expired)

On January 4, 1911 Fredericka Mayer died at the age of 70.  Her funeral was held in the drawing room the following day.  That summer the family sailed for Germany, where Florence first met Ehrich Hecht, a well-to-do young agent for a Berlin exporting firm.  A romance was sparked.

The family was back in Germany in 1914.  Benno Neuberger was ill and sought "the cure" in Konigstein.  Not surprisingly, it seems that Ehrich Hecht was a regular caller on Florence.  But the trip ended tragically, with Neuberger dying of pneumonia there on July 6, 1914 at the age of 48.  He left an estate valued at $1,357,982--or about $36.3 million today.

The funeral and burial was held in Germany.  The family narrowly escaped being trapped abroad when, less than two weeks later on July 28, World War I erupted.  

Once back home, Harry joined the Tenth Field Artillery to fight against the country his father had so dearly loved.  He was sent to the French front in 1918 where he would receive what the New York Herald called, "his baptism of fire at Chateau-Thierry."  Harry performed valiantly during the harrowing battle.  The New York Herald reported, "He continued to assist in the evacuation of the wounded even after being gassed," and noted grimly, "Of his regiment only three more men are left.  All the others were either killed, wounded or detached."

New York Herald, February 25, 1919 (copyright expired)

On February 24, 1919 Harry was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism overseas.

Just months after peace was declared, Florence resumed her romance with Ehrich.  Anti-German sentiments still ran high in America, a fact that, perhaps, resulted in their marriage being quietly held in the East 74th Street house on October 25, 1919.  The New York Times commented that the groom was "said to be the first German subject to arrive here since the war."  The article noted, "Mr. Hecht was employed in the German War Office during the hostilities, but it was said that he intends becoming an American citizen if permitted to do so."

In April 1920, Harry Neuberger sold the house to the Stevenson C. Scott family.  Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1864, Scott was the son of a portrait painter.  He came to the United States in 1893, and was now a respected art critic and the president of Scott & Fowles, art dealers.  He was an authority on 18th century English painting and, according to The Saratogian, "possessed a comprehensive knowledge of modern and classical art."

He and his wife, the former Marie Power, had one daughter, Marie.   The family was followed by the society columns as they sailed to Europe, or summered in Saratoga Springs, New York.  Understandably, the home of the man who sold paintings to wealthy collectors and institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art filled his home with valuable artwork.  In 1939 he traveled to London where he created "a mild sensation" in art circles, according to The Saratogian, "when he paid $30,000 at Christies for Whistler's famous painting, At the Piano."  It was the highest price ever paid for a Whistler at the time.

Scott paid the equivalent of $560,000 in today's money for At the Piano.  from the collection of The Taft Museum, Cincinnati.

In January 1945, Stevenson Scott injured his hip when he suffered a fall in the East 74th Street house.  The family went to the fashionable Gideon Putnam resort in Saratoga Springs for his convalescence.   He died there nine months later, on October 8 at the age of 81.

The East 74th Street house was soon purchased by Dr. Otto  Burchard and his wife Berta.  The couple remained here until selling it in December 1951.  The New York Times noted that the buyer intended to remodel it into "apartments of four rooms each."  That plan was never carried through.

At the time, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was living at 211 East 62nd Street.  She had met Dr. David Gurewitsch in 1944 and the two became extremely close, platonic friends, often traveling together.  When Gurewitsch married Edna Perkel in 1958, the deep friendship increased by one.  According to Shannon Butler in her Roosevelt Homes of the Hudson Valley: Hyde Park and Beyond, Eleanor "soon treated Edna as an additional companion, and they traveled all over the world and formed a tight bond of friendship."

Dr. David Gurewitsch and Eleanor Roosevelt outside the Kremlin.  from the Everett Collection

Butler explains, "It was Edna who mentioned the possibility of the three sharing a townhouse together that would give Eleanor more room to work and David space to see patients."  In 1959 the three purchased 55 East 74th Street, with Eleanor taking the lower three floors and the Gurewitsches living on the top two.  While they lived separately, the Gurewitsches would often dine with Eleanor.

Living with a diplomat had its challenges.   According to The Wall Street Journal writer Katherine Clarke, "One day in 1960, Edna Gurewitsch got a call from former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt suggesting she get to their shared townhome early: Soviet statesman Nikita Khruschev, in town to address the U.N. General Assembly, was swinging by."

Less than three years after moving in, Eleanor Roosevelt went to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center on September 26, 1962 for what the public was told was "a routine checkup."  But, the Utica Press later noted, "Actually she had suffered a lung infection and anemia.  When her illness failed to yield [to] hospital treatment, she was discharged to her Manhattan apartment at 55 East 74th Street on October 18."

The modestly furnished room in which Eleanor Roosevelt died.  from the collection of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum

The First Lady "gradually faded," according to the article, until she died at 6:15 on the evening of November 6, 1962.

In 1964 an auction of Eleanor Roosevelt's personal items was held at Hammer Galleries.  The New York Times reported, "The collection comes from Mrs. Roosevelt's residences at 55 East 74th Street and the Val-Kill Cottage on the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park, N.Y."  While many of the items were valuable antiques, like the 1750 George III melon-shaped silver pitcher, and the American Sheraton-style mahogany breakfront, a surprising number of the First Lady's furnishings were modest.  The New York Times diplomatically said, "In every case, though the furniture in the collection may have what is known as age, the articles are not period pieces."

David Gurewitsch died in 1974 and by 1976 Edna was operating the Gurewitsch Gallery from the house.  In April that year she staged an exhibition of sculptures by George Rickey here. 

She remained at 55 East 74th Street until 1999, when she sold it to Credit Suisse executive Vikram Gandhi and his wife, Meera, the founder of the Giving Back Foundation.   The nonprofit raises funds for education and to fight global poverty.  Through her works, Meera Gandhi, like Eleanor Roosevelt, would host prominent guests like Hillary Clinton in the house.  In 2000, the Gandhis made major renovations to the interior, eliminating Buchman & Deisler's 1899 architectural elements.

In the fall of 2021, with her children grown, Meera Gandhi sold 55 East 74th Street for $13.5 million.  In reporting the sale, The New York Times noted, "It has around 8,500 square feet of interior space and features terraces on the roof and fifth floor and a rear garden.  There are also six bedrooms, five full bathrooms and two half baths."

photograph by the author

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The 1899 Orleans Hotel - 100 West 80th Street

On February 26, 1898 the Record & Guide reported on the incorporation of The Imperial Construction Co. “for the purpose of carrying on a general contracting business.”  The company wasted no time in getting down to business.   Within two weeks it had purchased the brownstone houses at the southwest corner of Columbus Avenue and 80^th Street and contracted the architectural firm of Buchman & Deisler to design a 10-story “brick hotel” on the site (residence hotels were, essentially, apartment buildings except that residents ate in upscale communal dining rooms rather than in their suites).  Their plans, filed on March 4, estimated the cost of construction at $300,000—more than $9.5 million today.

Completed in 1899, the Beaux-Arts style Orleans Hotel vied for attention with the high-end mansions in the neighborhood.  As a matter of fact, it bore significant architectural similarities with the sumptuous row of mansions on West 73^rd Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.  There were 40 suites of from two to four rooms with bath, and four stores along the Columbus Avenue side.

The first commercial tenants seems to have been Huston & Dale, insurance agents in 412 Columbus Avenue.  In January 1899 the firm announced it had branched out into real estate “with an up-town office” here.  The following year Charles H. Brown opened his society florist shop in 410 Columbus.

The apartments filled with well-to-do residents, like W. H. Noyes, vice-president of the New York branch of Swift & Co., the massive Chicago meat packing firm.  Leopold Herzog was a member of the dry goods firm L. Herzog & Bro. on Leonard Street.  (He and his wife were enjoying a hansom cab ride through Central Park on July 5, 1903 when the horse became spooked and ran away, throwing the Herzogs and the driver to the ground.  Leopold received a bad scalp wound but his wife escaped injury.)  Another of the initial residents was Louis Mendham who was the head of a downtown brokerage firm.

About the time that ground was broken for the Orleans Hotel, Louis Mendham attended a social event where he met the very young widow, Alice Coe Fallon.  Her husband, John H. Fallon had died a year earlier, and The New York Press mentioned that Alice “had just laid aside her [widow’s] weeds when Mendham met her.”  Alice, the daughter of Edward H. Coe, came from a prominent San Francisco family.

Mendham moved into the Orleans Hotel and shortly afterwards Alice took a suite at the equally upscale Rudolph on Central Park West.  Alice may have been concerned that society would disapprove of her marrying so quickly; so, when the couple was wed on April 25, 1900, they told no one—not even their parents.  A year later, however, Alice’s pregnancy ruined the secret.  On May 7, 1901 The New York Press reported “Few persons are as successful in keeping a secret as Louis Mendham, and his wife have proved themselves.”  The first social event that Alice attended as Mrs. Louis Mendham was a visit to her mother-in-law to introduce herself and the infant girl.

Today we tend to think of immigrants as impoverished and ill-educated, living crushed together in tenements.  And, indeed, while that was the case for tens of thousands, there were also those immigrants who landed in New York already successful and wealthy.

One such woman was Elizabeth Ambrosy, whose parents brought her from Brandenburg, Germany, around 1870.  Since her childhood she had known Eugene A. Landon, who grew up to be a wealthy lumber merchant.  On April 3, 1906 the two were married in the Orleans Hotel.  The New-York Tribune remarked that the “wedding was quiet, only a few friends of the pair being present.”  That was most likely because the groom had just divorced his wife.

Sexism was alive and well in 1908 but the telephone operator of the Orleans Hotel did not accept that fact.  Anna Cassidy (who with other apartment house and hotel operators was termed a “hello girl”) was accustomed to arriving at work each morning, ordering her breakfast from the dining room, and eating at her desk just off the lobby.  And that was what she did on Saturday morning, August 1, 1908.

Suddenly Albert L. Semoyer appeared and “commanded her to take her meals outside the place.”  Anna, who had never seen the impertinent 29-year-old before, asked him “what he had to do with it” and went back to her breakfast.  What no one had bother to tell her was that Semoyer was her new boss, the manager of the hotel.

“He strode toward her; seized her chair and jerked it away.  Miss Cassidy sat down under the affront.  She sat down so abruptly, in fact, that for the moment she was deprived of speech,” reported The New York Press.  Semoyer then “dragged her to a seat.”  Anna Cassidy pressed charges of disorderly conduct.  In court, Anthony McGlynn, the hotel’s night clerk, testified in her behalf.  Semoyer was charged $5 (about $145 in today’s money).  The New York Press said “Semoyer paid the fine with an expression that seemed to say he would be more careful about making young women, especially hello girls, bump the bumps.”

The Columbus Avenue Elevated ran alongside the Orleans Hotel when this photograph was taken around 1915.  photo by Wurtz Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Living in the Orleans Hotel at the time was German-born writer Frederick Franklin Schrader.  In October 1909 he won The Evening Telegram’s Short Story Contest with his “Mrs. Jackson’s Burglar,” taking the first prize of $50 in gold.

But his allegiance to the country of his birth soon caused a drastic change in the tone of his writings.  He became co-editor of the weekly periodical The Fatherland the subtitle of which was Fair Play for Germany and Austria-Hungary.”  He contributed scores of articles like the one entitled “American People Waking Up” in the July 28, 1913 issue; and “Are We England’s Secret Ally?” on May 5, 1915.  In that article he warned “Are the American people being betrayed?  Are they to be delivered hand and foot, boots and saddle, into the hands of England and Russia?” 

He was also the author of the 1912 book The Germans in The Making of America.  It was later discovered that Schrader was an employee of the German Consul, paid to disseminate pro-German propaganda before and during World War I.

In 1915 416 Columbus Avenue was home to the Boyd Pharmacy (a drugstore would remain in the space at least through 1938).  It was around this time that the Orleans Hotel began accepting transient guests as well as permanent residents.  In 1916 a single room “with use of bath” in the hall cost $1 per night (about $24 today); a room and bath cost 50 cents more; and a suite with two bedrooms, parlor and bath were $3.50 and up.  Meals in the dining room cost an extra $10 per week.

While many Victorian structures fell from favor during the 1920’s and ‘30s as streamlined Art Deco apartment buildings rose, the Orleans Hotel never declined.  In the 1930’s it was home to stockbroker Ogden Doremus Budd and his wife, the former Grace Jackson; and veteran theatrical manager and producer, Daniel V. Arthur and his actress wife, Marie Cahill.

Marie was born in Brooklyn in 1866 of Irish immigrant parents.  She was well-known to Broadway audiences both as an actress and vocalist.  After her marriage to Daniel V. Arthur, he produced several plays written for her and managed her career.

The Orleans Hotel experienced a glut of Soviet nationals in the Cold War years.  In 1959 Second Secretary to the Consulate of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Victor A. Ignatov and his wife lived here, as did Soviet attaché Konstantin Grigorievich Sadovnikov and Vadim Vladimirovich Sorokin, Third Secretary and his wife.  Another resident was Alexander R. Sitnikov and Madame Sitnikov, Second Secretary to the Byelorussian Consulate.

Ironically at the same time the Orleans Hotel was home to Russian immigrant Boris Gourevitch.  An author, anti-Soviet activist and President of the Union for the Protection of the Human Person, he had been born in Kiev during the reign of Czar Nicholas II.  A pacifist and humanitarian, between the overthrow of the Czar and the Bolshevik Revolution, he was chairman of the Union for Evolutionary Socialism.  The New York Times noted “His writings in Russia included appeals for pacifism, a philosophical novel, works on the cultural life of Jews, the peoples of Russia and poetry.”

When the Soviets took power, he fled to France.  As Adolf Hitler’s control in Germany increased, Gourevitch formed the Committee for the Emancipation of Jews and later the Union for the Protection of the Human Person.  After arriving in New York, he wrote the 2,700-page, two volume work The Road to Peace and Moral Democracy for which he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 and 1959.  He died in 1964 while still living in the Orleans Hotel.

The last decades of the 20^th century saw trendy shops in the Columbus Avenue stores, like Bottecelli, Beau Brummel, the Spring Flowers boutique, and the Museum Gallery.

More recent shops include Billy’s Bakery which opened in October 2018, bocnyc, and Berkley Girl.  In the meantime, developers (and residents) David Sterling and Nora Lavori received approval for a 26-unit conversion of the upper floors in August 2014, at which point the building became simply The Orleans.

photographs by the author

Buchman & Deisler's 1891 15-23 Waverly Place (aka 250-256 Greene Street)

 

The flurry of development taking place in the former upscale residential neighborhood just east of Washington Square was in full swing in 1890.  All around elegant brick-faced homes erected for the likes of Cornelius Vanderbilt I were being razed to be replaced by substantial loft buildings.  On June 28 alone the Real Estate Record & Guide reported on the sale of a dozen properties on Greene Street and on Waverly Place.  Among them were six houses at the corner of Greene and Waverly Place purchased by developer and builder Jeremiah C. Lyons.  He paid the equivalent of $10.5 million for the parcel which, said the article, "is to be improved with a large business building."

And indeed it was.  Lyons hired the architectural firm of Buchman & Deisler to design six loft structures that would appear as one.  Their plans, filed in March, included clever innovations.  The Record & Guide reported "There will be a courtyard in the middle of the plot about 40 feet square, with elevators and platforms on each side, and an entrance on Greene street.  This feature will enable the firms occupying the buildings to do all their loading and unloading of goods on the inside, and at the same time prevent blockades on the street."

The article added "Still another important feature will be the erection around the building on the courtyard of an iron platform, in which the water and waterclosets will be located, thus keeping water out of the main buildings and preventing the destruction of goods by overflows, besides securing good sanitary results."  The cost of the brick and stone-trimmed structure was projected at $280,000, bringing Lyon's total outlay to around $18.7 million in today's money.

The building filled with millinery and clothing manufacturers.  Among the earliest and largest was Hirschberg & Co., makers of hats and caps, including its Victor Headwear brand.  Gustav Hirschberg had founded the firm in 1871 and his son, Sidney G. Hirchberg, joined the firm in 1891, the same year it relocated to Waverly Place.  At its "immense factory" here, as described by The American Hatter, it produced "cloth, straw and felt" men's hats.

Other early tenants in the massive complex were H. M. Bloch & Brother, makers of "trousers and breeches;" Glueckman & Gross, boys and children's wear manufacturers; and John R. Walker, importer of Irish linens like shirt fronts and handkerchiefs.  The Clothier and Furnisher called Walker in 1896, "a gentleman of Irish extraction, pleasant-faced, and most amiable to meet...He gives the small man the advantage of a few yards of shirtings when he needs them, and an order for two or three dozen of handkerchiefs is never passed by."

The Clothier & Furnisher, July 1896 (copyright expired)

Organized labor was increasingly a thorn in the sides of factory owners in the 1890's.  Firms who stood fast against the demands for reduced hours, more humane working conditions and better wages, often saw their workforce walk out.  The power of the individual unions was increased when the various branches joined forces.  Peavy Brothers discovered that in the spring of 1893 when a strike that seemed to have nothing to do with its factory hit home.

On March 23 The Evening World reported "A breach between the Manufacturers' Association and the United Garment Cutters has widened.  To aggravate matters the attitude of the Knights of Labor and the United garment Cutters has now become one of openly-declared hostility."  The article said "A strike of thirty men has been declared at Peavy Brothers, 15 and 17 Waverly place, because the firm refused to comply with the request of the Garment Workers Union to promise to support their workingmen during the threatened lockout."

The Unexcelled Mfg. Co. produced children's wear here.  The Clothier & Furnisher, January 1896 (copyright expired)

A decade later Hirschberg & Co. was shut down.  On December 22 the associated cap and hat makers unions initiated a city-wide walk-out.  This time management did not concede to what the firms felt were excessive demands.  Three months later, according to Men's Wear, "The strike has cost workmen $220,000" in lost wages.  "It seems bosses gained all points demanded, but will remove the open shop placards."  ("Open shop" signs announced that non-union workers were accepted.)

While the unions were guaranteed that none of the striking employees would be fired, the settlement agreement did not include any pay raises or reduced hours, and noted that employers could "engage and discharge whomever they see fit and "no officers or delegates of the union to visit the shops."  

Men's Wear magazine, March 1905 (copyright expired)

Sidney Hirschberg immediately released a statement promising his customers "We are in a position to fill all orders promptly...We are in a better position that ever before to turn out work promptly, because of the new conditions under which the men are working."  The factory employed around 114 workers, mostly men.

Gross & Weiss employed an even larger workforce in its women's apparel factory.  But unlike Hirschberg & Co., the majority of its 171 workers were female.  Two of them were greatly annoyed with their foreman, Morris Waldman in the winter of 1909.  On December 17 The New York Call reported "Bertha Elkins was sent to the workhouse and Bessie Schechter was fined $10 on the charge of throwing rotten eggs at Morris Waldman."

Elevator malfunctions in the early 20th century were common and the Waverly Place building was not immune.  On May 24, 1915 The Daily Standard-Union reported "Leopold Korn, 54 years old...was operating a freight elevator at 17 Waverly place, Manhattan to-day, when the cable broke, Korn falling three stories."  Luckily he suffered only a broken leg in the accident.

The buildings continued to house millinery and apparel forms in the years following World War I.  In 1919 the Fine Hat Manufacturing, one of the early tenants, was still here, as were Hirschberg & Co., and Marshall's, Inc., hat makers.

It appears that Hirschberg & Co. was not above knocking off other firms' designs.  A help-wanted advertisement in 1923 sought "millinery copyists on misses' and children's high grand hand made hats."

In the 1930's and '40's tenants included Siegal & Glass, men's clothiers; the Arkay Dress & Sportswear Manufacturing Company; the Cloth Headgear Manufacturing Company; and Philip Dann Clothing Company.

Philip Dann Clothing made uniforms for the United States Army.  Its factory was understandably operating at full steam during the World War II years.  Until the last quarter of the 20th century workers were paid in cash, each receiving a pay envelope once a week.  It was a system that invited disaster as crooks, who knew that once a week the large payroll would be withdrawn from the bank, would spy on the comings-and-goings of employees to learn the routine.

On February 5, 1943 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "Two gunmen today followed Abe Spitalnik, 25...office manager of the Philip Dann Clothing Company...into the elevator there and robbed him of the firm's payroll of $5,800."  The heist would be nearly $86,000 in today's money.

The renaissance of the district around New York University in the 1970's arrived here in 1972 when the upper floors were converted to apartments--24 per floor.   

By 1977 the Village Skating Rink was in the building.  On December 23 that year the Daily News wrote "The disco music blares, and the roller skaters rock to the beat.  They slide...they glide...round and round they go, singly, in pairs, in groups, nearly always smiling.  They scene is Village Skating, (15 Waverly Place) and the action is pure and simple with teenagers, young adults and a sprinkling of older adults sharing the space as they wheel around the rink."

In 1979 Syncopation opened in one of the ground floor spaces.  The Daily News reported on June 27 "So there is yet another jazz club, Syncopation, at 15 Waverly Place just off Washington Square Park.  It's a long, narrow room with walls taken down to the bricks and, for those who will be impressed, white tablecloths."

Other businesses over the next decades would be the Star of Siam Thai food restaurant in the early 1980's; Club Paradise in the late '80's and early '90's; and the Apple Restaurant, which opened around 1993 and remained more than a decade.  Today the White Oak Tavern occupies most of the ground floor.

photographs by the author

The Leo Schlesinger Toy Factory -- Nos. 292-296 Lafayette Street

In 1889 Leo Schlesinger most likely surprised other businessmen along Elm Street when he supported the proposed extension of Elm Street to Lafayette Place.  At the time Elm Street ended at Jersey Street.  Lafayette Place began about two blocks to the north.  The public works project would necessitate the demolition of several significant business structures.  One of the buildings that would be affected was Schlesinger’s.  His toy factory at Nos. 129-131 Crosby Street ran back along Jersey Street and straddled the proposed new thoroughfare.

But on November 9, 1889 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported “One of the most important briefs was from Leo Schlesinger, of Crosby street, the well-known manufacturer of toys and tinware, who strongly favored the improvement, notwithstanding that it would have taken 80 feet away from the front of his manufactory.”  Schlesinger argued that cutting the street through would improve transportation and, therefore, the city and its industries in general.

Six years earlier, on October 13, 1883, The American Machinist had reported “Leo Schlesinger, 11^th st. and Avenue D…will have a new manufactory of tin toys on Crosby Street.”   The toy maker had purchased the two lots on Crosby and three on Jersey Street from the Stewart Estate for $205,000 ($5 million in 2016).  He commissioned the architectural firm of H. J. Schwartzmann & Co. to design the toned-down Queen Anne style building, completed in 1894.

Schlesinger, who was also a director in several banks and other corporations, employed an average of 160 workers in his factory.  He leased extra space in the building to commercial tenants.  In June 1884 the Industrial Printing Co. was here, looking for a “First-Class job compositor,” one who was “accustomed to fine commercial work.”  The firm promised “steady position to the right man.”

The Crosby Street elevation, once the front of the building, is now blocked up.

There was one rather surprising tenant.  In January 1884, according to The Sun, “the United Hebrew Charities determined to take measures to save the poor boys of their race in this city from what seemed to threaten them as a common fate, viz., becoming peddlers.”

The Hebrew Technical Institute was formed and in its 25^th Anniversary booklet it remembered “four months later the sixth and seventh floors of a factory building at 129 Crosby Street were rented from Mr. Leo Schlesinger, who was to furnish heat and power.  There the school continued from May, 1884 to February, 1887.”

While the debate on the extension of Elm Street dragged on, Leo Schlesinger expanded his business.  In August 1895 he partnered with L. Stern to form The Stanley Cycle Mfg. Co.  Iron Trade Review reported the new firm would “manufacture high grade bicycles.  The company expects to turn out between 10,000 and 15,000 wheels per annum” at the Crosby Street factory.

Finally, in 1897 the city condemned and demolished the buildings between Jersey Street and Great Jones Street in the way of the Elm Street project.  Included was the 80-foot section of Schlesinger’s factory building, for which the city paid him a handsome $96,000.  But rather than abandon his reduced property, or demolish the remaining chunk and start over; he commissioned the architectural firm of Buchman & Deisler to remodel it.

On July 10, 1897 the Record & Guide reported on the filing of 11 building plans related to the widening and extension of Elm Street.  Among them were Buchman & Deisler’s plans for Schlesinger’s seven-story factory.   The Guide’s description was nebulous: “extension of rear wall and new front.”    The project would be much more.

The architects essentially flipped the front of the building—moving the architectural focus to the wider, newer Lafayette Street.   While harmonious with Schwartzmann’s Queen Anne-style Crosby Street design, Buchman & Deisler’s Renaissance Revival Lafayette Street elevation was more aggressive.  White limestone starkly contrasted with the deep red brick.  Handsome stone capitals capped the three-story brick piers at the fourth through sixth floors.  As an added touch, the architects chamfered the corner; a detail which extended to the cast iron store front.

More than a year after the Elm Street-Lafayette Street project began, businessmen were furious with the city’s delay in its completion.  On September 30 Leo Schlesinger was the chief spokesmen at a meeting with the Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck.  He presented the Mayor with three photographs “which clearly proved not only the incomplete state of the work, but the generally obstructed condition of the thoroughfare,” reported the Record & Guide.  Schlesinger called the conditions “disgraceful.”

Leo Schlesinger Company produced children's toys, like this Red Riding Hood tea set.

Disaster was narrowly averted late on the night of November 24, 1902 when the water tank atop the building collapsed.  Fortunately for the businesses inside, there was no damage; however pedestrians must have been startled when “water poured over the roof into the street,” as reported by The Sun the following morning.

By 1915 the area around No. 296 Lafayette Street was the center of the millinery and hat-related industries.  Leo Schlesinger had moved his operation to Front Street years earlier.  Among the businesses in the Lafayette Street building was Ignatius Buckman who manufactured hat making machines.

That summer he did a friend, John Treubert, a favor by storing $4,000 worth of velvet “for safe-keeping.”  But the 51-year old Buckman hatched a nefarious scheme.  He staged a burglary of his own factory, instructing several of his clerks to sneak out the valuable cloth.

When Treubert arrived at the factory the first week of June, Buckman sadly reported that his place had been robbed and that in addition to Treubert’s velvet, the thieves had gotten away with $2,000 worth of Buckman’s property.

John Truebert was not convinced.  He notified detectives who questioned Buckman’s employees.  Unfortunately for Buckman, they readily confessed to having followed their boss’s criminal orders. 

Police surrounded Buckman’s house at No. 283 East 164^th Street on the night of June 11.  The Evening World reported “when they were demanding admission to the front door he appeared at a rear window in his night clothing and was about to jump when he saw other detectives and stepped back.”  Ignatius Buckman was arrested for having burglarized his own factory.

In 1919 the Crosby Street store was home to the International High Speed Steel Company; while on an upper floor the Bristol Hat Company was among the millinery firms doing business.  One tenant not in the hat business was Geringer Brothers, a manufacturer of “gas and lamp shades.”

Isidor Geringer was working late with two employees on the night of November 27, 1920.  That night a series of violent hold-ups erupted in both Manhattan and the Bronx.  One of them would take Geringer’s life.

At around 9:00 three men wearing masks and long raincoats barged into the shop.  The employees were ordered to raise their arms into the air.  Geringer nervously watched as one of the thugs was taking $12 from the pocket of Louis Lobell.  He dropped his hands to his side and was immediately shot.  The New York Herald reported “He was taken to New York Hospital and probably will die.”

A bizarre incident occurred here on November 2, 1922 after fire erupted in the building.  Fire fighters poured thousands of gallons of water into the burning building, the upper floors of which were occupied “by various paper and hat concerns,” according to The New York Herald the following day.

Six fire fighters from Hook and Ladder Company No. 9 entered the building and began chopping through a wall.  What they did not realize was that the well-built structure had trapped the growing amount of water, to the point that the walls were bulging, according to the newspaper.

Finally their axes broke through and the firemen were carried away in the massive flood of water which was released.  “Three of the firemen—Wynn, Scheck and Matofsky—were swept down the stairs from the first to the ground floor, and after being dashed from wall to wall finally were catapulted into the street, landing in the roadway half conscious.”  The three others, Lt. Lamb and Firemen Murphy and Murray “narrowly escaped drowning,” according to the newspaper, by clinging “to the only substantial article in sight, a stair rail.” 

The tenants suffered about $20,000 in damages.

The wooden beams and columns survive where tin toys were once manufactured.  photo by Corcoran Group

The former Schlesinger toy factory continued to be home to various small industries for the next six decades.  Then in 1984 the upper floors were converted to “joint living and work quarters for artists.”  Today the lofts where tin tea sets and fire trucks were manufactured are luxury residences that sell for over $3 million.  Buchman & Deisler’s well-preserved façade survives nearly a century and a quarter after Lafayette Street plowed through Leo Schlesinger’s factory.

photographs by the author