The 1903 Victoria - 250 Riverside Drive

 

photo by Deansfa

On March 29, 1902, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide described Jacob Axelrod as being, "well-known as a successful builder of apartment houses in this city."  He had recently organized the West Side Construction Co. and broken ground for its first project, "a 9-story and basement fireproof apartment house from the plans by George F. Pelham."  Located at the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and 97th Street, the Record & Guide said it "will be an appropriate ornament to the beautiful bend of the Drive that winds around this point."

Pelham had established a solid reputation as an apartment designer.  Called The Victoria, the building was completed in 1903 at a cost of $275,000 (just over $10 million in 2026).  Pelham designed the footprint of the Renaissance Revival-style structure as an H, thereby providing light and ventilation to every room.  Faced in beige iron-spot brick and trimmed in limestone, its turret-like, rounded corners on the drive not only provided exterior dimension, but increased airflow inside.  Renaissance-inspired stone balconies clung to the facade.  The bracketed terminal cornice was crowned with anthemions.  Although Pelham placed the entrance on the side street within the two-story striated base, the building took the more impressive address of 250 Riverside Drive.

The sloping terrain that confronted George Pelham can be seen in the stone water table, at sidewalk level at the right (at the entrance) and nearly a half-story above grade at the corner.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

Potential residents could select among apartments of five, six or seven rooms with a bath.  The Record & Guide reported that they provided "every modern improvement, including electric elevators...and long-distance 'phones for each apartment."  Occupants would enjoy, "gas ranges, sanitary exposed plumbing, and all the other appliances now demanded by tenants for the promotion of health and comfort."  The journal described the entrance hall as being a "splendor of marble and decorative effects."  

The Victoria filled with affluent, professional families.  The 1907 Dau's Greater New York Blue Book, considered the directory of fashionable society, listed 13 residents of the building, by then known as the Robert Fulton Apartments.

Every room had natural ventilation and light.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

The name change was initiated by architect and builder Robert T. Lyons, who purchased the property from the builder.  At the time of the 1907 Blue Book's release, he was living in his newly-built Rhineland Court, on the opposite corner of 97th Street.  

Among his tenants here in 1908 was a very disgruntled John M. Williams.  In April, the janitor, William Huneke, notified Williams about a plumbing problem and asked permission to enter his apartment to disconnect the steam and water pipes.  Williams refused.  And so Huneke spoke to Robert T. Lyons, who instructed him to use a passkey to enter the apartment.

On April 12, Williams discovered Huneke in his apartment and attempted to prevent him from doing the repairs.  According to Williams, the janitor assaulted him.  He promptly had Huneke arrested for disorderly conduct.  The New York Times reported, "The cell door had hardly closed on the janitor when in walked Robert Lyons, the owner of the house, who lost no time in informing the desk Lieutenant that he wanted to bail Huneke out."  Lyons, instead, got "a big surprise."

Lyons was also arrested on charges by Williams for allowing Huneke to enter his apartment.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Lyons was bailed out by his wife.  Then he bailed out the janitor."

On February 11, 1909, The New York Times reported, "Residents of Riverside Drive in the neighborhood of Ninety-Sixth Street are in a state of dire perturbation over the number of hold-ups, robberies, and assaults which have taken place in that region recently."  After nearly a month of attacks, apartment building tenants, said the article, had asked permission from the police department "to arm the elevator conductors."  

Among the victims of the crime spree was resident Mrs. C. E. Carpenter.  At around 7:30 on the night of February 9, she turned the corner of 95th Street onto Riverside Drive when "a man jumped from the shadow of an apartment house and struck her sharply in the face."  Mrs. Carpenter fell to the sidewalk and the thug grabbed her handbag and fled.

Mrs. Carpenter's screams alerted several nearby men, including Henry Danker, a grocery clerk who had just delivered goods to the Robert Fulton.  The intrepid youth chased the robber onto the New York Central railroad tracks along the river.  The New York Times reported that Danker, "closed in on him as he dodged in and out among the freight cars."  The crook flung Mrs. Carpenter's bag at his pursuer and escaped.  Danker returned it to Mrs. Carpenter, "who found that nothing had been taken from it."

Living here at the time was the family of cotton dealer Benjamin H. Ettelson.  Born in 1869, he married Rose Sanger on April 28, 1897.  The couple had two children, Lehman Sanger, born in 1898, and Dorothy, born in 1905.  

On January 25, 1909, Rose and two female friends embarked on a road trip to Connecticut.  The New-York Tribune reported, "The party reached 156th street and St. Nicholas avenue just as the children were coming out of Public School 46 and swarming through the streets."  Nine-year-old Charles Osborne "became confused when the automobile was within a few feet of him," said the article.  The Ettelson car struck the boy.

Rose Ettelson ordered the chauffeur, Munson J. Palmer, to stop.  The New York Herald said, "picking up the boy, [she] held him in her arms during the drive to the Washington Heights Hospital."  Osborne was diagnosed with a fractured skull.  Rose Ettelson was overwrought.  The Evening World said, "She refused to leave his bedside until midnight, and then would not ride again in the automobile which had hurt the boy, but went to her home in a livery cab."  In the meantime, Munson J. Palmer was arrested.

The Evening World, January 26, 1909 (copyright expired)

With dramatic prose, the following day The Evening World began an article saying, "Mrs. Charles Osborn lies inconsolate in her grief at her home...Beside her on the bed are her boy Charley's little cap, one of his rubber shoes and his school books, held together by a strap."  The article continued, "In her home, at No. 250 Riverside Drive, Mrs. Benjamin H. Ettelson is under a pall of grief only a little less poignant than that of the boy's mother."

Among the Ettelsons' neighbors in the Robert Fulton were author Maximilian Foster and his wife, the former Elizabeth Dickson.  The couple was married in 1904.  Born in San Francisco on February 27, 1872, Foster began his career as a newspaper writer for the New York Recorder in 1891.  By now, he had written In the Forest, published in 1902; Corrie Who?, in 1908; The Silent Partner the same year; and in 1909 he completed his play The Whirlpool.  He contributed articles to publications like Everybody's, Harper's, Collier's, the Saturday Evening Post and Atlantic Monthly.

Foster's I Want to Be a Lady was published in 1926. (copyright expired)

Foster would go on to write the screenplays for the 1918 Rich Man, Poor Man, and Something to Do, released in 1919.

An advertisement on August 13, 1916 listed annual rents for seven-room corner apartments at $1,300 to $1,400, and non-corner apartments at $1,000 to $1,500.  The most expensive rent would translate to $3,450 per month today.

On March 8, 1917, the Musical Courier announced, "The prima donna role of 'Gypsy Love' is being sung on tour this season by Finita De Soria, the Spanish soprano."  The Richmond, Indiana Item noted, "She has a truly remarkable voice, which she knows how to use in an adorably bewitching manner."

Finita De Soria, from the collection of the New York Public Library

On May 3, 1921, The New York Times related that Finita De Soria had reported the theft of $12,000 of jewels from her apartment.  The article said they included, "jewelry given the singer's father by the Queen of Spain."  She explained to police that she had gone to the theater and returned about 10:00.  "She said she found the door of her apartment wide open and the jewel box open on a dresser."  The value of the stolen items would translate to $210,000 today.

The police surmised that the burglar had come through the kitchen window and "made his escape boldly, going down in the elevator and coolly walking out the front door," said the article.  

Five months after the crime, Finita De Soria was losing patience.  On October 23 she wrote to Police Commissioner Richard Enright:

Dear Mr. Commissioner:

Is there an way you can help me to get some action from the 100th Street Police Station in the recovery of $12,000 worth of jewelry stolen from my apartment, at No. 250 Riverside Drive, on Sunday night, May 1?

I do not hope to get all the jewels, but I am particularly anxious to try to trace a set of earrings and a brooch of gold and blue enamel, both presented to my mother by the Queen of Spain.

Anything you can do to help me will be very greatly appreciated.

Four days later, a letter to the editor of The Evening World complained about the lack of headway in solving the crime.  The writer, who signed the letter "L.D.L.," said in part, "It seems to me a peculiar brand of 'efficiency' that neither protects the home from robbery nor cares enough to report what progress, if any, has been made in bringing the criminals to justice."

In the meantime, the "destruction of her new fall bonnet was the straw which broke the back of Mrs. Murgurdick J. Tashjian's married life," reported The Sun on September 23, 1920.  Murgurdick J. Tashjian was a dealer of antique rugs at 2605 Broadway.  His mother-in-law shared their apartment.  

When his wife came home with a new hat, he flew into a rage and smashed it.  Mrs. Tashjian sued for separation and the New York Herald said that since the incident she and her mother had "lived apart from her husband."  In court, Tashjian denied "his wife's charges of cruelty."

The romance of another resident in the building dissolved a decade later.  Stanley Vulgaris owned what was described by The New York Times as a "prosperous restaurant and cigar stand business."  He was romantically involved with a well-to-do widow, Olive Spencer.  Vulgaris proposed in July 1930 and the wedding date was set for New Year's Day 1931.  But, eight months after the date passed, according to Vulgaris, his beloved "refused to carry out her promise."

In response, in August 1931 Vulgaris sued his former fiancée for $25,000 for the "loss of his business," which he said he had lost "through devoting his time and attention to her;" another $25,000 for the money he spent "in an endeavor to entertain her and minister to her pleasure;" and $200,000 for her treatment that caused him "intense mental agony, pain, suffering and nervous affliction."  The total damages suffered by the wounded suitor would equal more than $5 million today.

Attorney Wilmer J. McAllister and his wife, the former Bessie Sterry, lived here around the same time.  Born in 1873, Bessie had a sterling American pedigree.  The New York Times explained that four maternal and four paternal ancestors "came to this country on the Mayflower."  Understandably, she was a member of the Daughters of the Founders and Patriots of America, the Daughters of the American Revoluti0n and the Colonial Descendants of America."  Bessie McAllister died here "after a long illness" at the age of 63 on October 31, 1936.

The building was renovated in 1937.  As part of the remodeling, the anthemion cresting on the cornice was removed.

 Two years before this photo was taken in 1939, the cornice had lost its decorative anthemions.   photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Attorney George A. Timone and his family lived here as early as 1942.  Born on November 10, 1903, he was a graduate of Fordham and Columbia Universities and became a member of the law firm of Latson & Tamblyn in 1937.  He and his wife, the former Virginia Mary Fletcher, had two sons, Richard and Donald, and a daughter, Virginia.  A devout Catholic, George would become the chairman of the New York Chapter of the Knights of Columbus, and counsel of the Cathedral Canteen, the National Catholic Community Service, United Service Organization. 

George A. Timone, The New York Times, December 15, 1971

Perhaps the first time Timone's name appeared in print was on December 2, 1942, when he appeared as a State witness in the trial of the three producers of Wine, Woman and Song, a play accused of being "indecent."  On October 15 that year, George and Virginia sat in the fifth row of the orchestra.  On the stand, he described a girl named Scarlet Kelly who "gyrated and pranced and danced around the stage in a purple and green ensemble that did not cover her."  He also told about a fan dancer who, after dropping her fans, wore only "her shoes and a groin cloth about two or three inches wide."

On March 8, 1946, The New York Times reported that Timone had been appointed by Mayor O'Dwyer as a member of the Board of Education.  In responding to the appointment, Timone said, "I am sure it will be a very fascinating life."

Eight years later, on October 5, 1954, Mayor Robert F. Wagner appointed Timone a justice of the Court of Domestic Relations (renamed Family Court in 1962).  The post came with a salary equal to $228,000 today.

Additionally, Judge Timone rose to be vice president of the Board of Education.  In 1969, he suffered a stroke, but continued to work "long hours in court," according to The New York Times.  He suffered a fatal heart attack on December 13, 1971 at the age of 68.  By then, his two sons were Roman Catholic priests.

The turbulence of the 1960s was reflected in the lives of some residents of 250 Riverside Drive.  Shirley Blackwell Cummings had a long career in newspaper and public relations work.  Then, on June 30, 1962, the New York Amsterdam News reported that she had been appointed "executive assistant to Dr. Samuel D. Proctor, Peace Corps Representative in Nigeria."  The article said she was "one of two Negro women who were named to key Peace Corps staff positions overseas."

Jonah Raskin and his wife, the former Eleanor Stein, lived here in 1969 when they were two of 65 demonstrators who were arrested at an anti-Vietnam protest.  The 27-year-old Jonah was an assistant professor at State University at Stony Brook, Long Island, and Eleanor, who was 23, was a law student at Columbia.  The pair was charged "with felonious assault, rioting and incitement to riot," according to The New York Times.

Eleanor Raskin's mug shot.  Hearings Before the Committee on International Security House of Representatives, August 7 1969.

But Jonah Raskin and Robert Reilly, a lecturer at the Baldwin School on West 74th Street, seem to have been singled out.  In a press conference in the Raskins' apartment here, the men said they were taken to a basement room in the East 51st Street precinct house, handcuffed, and beaten for 45 minutes.  The two said "policemen took turns beating them with nightsticks and blackjacks, and one policeman repeatedly kicked them."

The building was altered again in 1974.  This time the entire cornice was removed, leaving an unsightly scar and unfinished appearance.

Singer Beverly Donna Hodge, who was known professionally as Donna Wood, and her husband, composer and arranger George Howard Hodge, lived in an apartment near Lincoln Center.  Early on the morning of October 13, 1973, according to Beverly, the couple came home from a party and surprised "two armed and masked burglars."  The crooks struck George behind the ear with a blunt object, and bound and gagged the couple.  George Hodge died from his injuries.

Beverly sued the Lincoln Towers management for negligence in security.  But by August 1974, her well-planned scheme unraveled.  Former bartender John Hemmers, who lived in 250 Riverside Drive, was arrested as one of the two "burglars" hired by Beverly to murder her husband.   The 35-year-old Hemmers was found guilty of first degree murder on November 10, 1975.

photograph by Deansfa

Sadly shorn of its architecturally important cornice, 250 Riverside Drive has never lost its panache.  

many thanks to reader Aaron Fedor for suggesting this post

The 1889 Wickliffe - 226 West 78th Street

 

image via apartments.com

In 1899, builder W. G. Horgan acquired the two rowhouses at 226 and 228 West 78th Street.  He hired architect George F. Pelham to design a six-story apartment building on the site.  Pelham had learned his trade in the architectural office of his father, George Brown Pelham.  He opened his own office in 1890 and would focus on apartment buildings, hotels and commercial structures, drawing from a variety of historic styles.

For the six-story Wickliffe apartments, completed the following year, Pelham drew on Renaissance prototypes while giving it a decidedly 19th century flair.  He created three vertical parts by rounding and projecting the two-bay-wide end sections.  Verticality was softened by intermediate cornices at the second, third and sixth floors, and by decorating the turret-like bays with intricately carved bands at the fourth and fifth.  Classical Renaissance-style pediments crowned the center windows at the third and fourth floors.  The building wore an ornate bracketed cornice crowned with alternating stylized anthemions and fleurs-de-lis.  

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

An advertisement in The New York Times touted, "Elegant light, large 8-room apartments, all improvements, near Subway and all cars.  Rents $1,200 to $1,350."  The monthly rents would translate to $3,500 to $4,000 in 2026.

The tenants were, expectedly, professional.  Among the initial residents were Dr. James J. Phillips, a graduate of North Carolina University; and Prince and Princess Auersperg.  The Austrian Prince had recently relocated to New York City.  His wife was what newspapers called at the time, "a penny princess."

Earlier, The New York Times reported, "Miss Florence E. Hazard...created a sensation by her marriage on June 14, 1899, to Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg," and the Morning Call said that when the engagement was announced, "much surprise was manifested on account of her youth.  She was then but sixteen years old."  Florence's father, Edward C. Hazard, was described by The New York Times as "the wealthy wholesale grocer."  

Florence Ellsworth Hazard was young, beautiful and wealthy when she met the prince.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg was 30 years old when he married Florence.  (original source unknown)

Prince Auersperg desperately needed a wealthy wife.  His title "dates back to Charlemagne," said the Paterson, New Jersey newspaper The Morning Call.  But, said the article, "Adventures in Vienna and in other European cities took much of the prince's money."  The New York Evening News was more direct saying, "the Prince came to America in 1896 having exhausted his patrimony and run half a million dollars in debt."  He entered the Long Island College Hospital to study medicine and it was shortly after that he met his future wife.

At the time of their marriage, the groom's older brother sent Florence "several rings, and a valuable diamond necklace," said The Morning Call, and her "father settled a fortune upon her."  But the titled newlyweds would not be living in the prince's homeland.  The newspaper explained, "in spite of her immense dowry, the princess would not be received by the Austrian nobility."  And so, they secured an apartment in the Wickliffe and, like Dr. Phillips, the prince opened a medical office.

The road for the titled couple was rocky nearly from the start.  On April 18, 1900, The New York Times reported that Princess Auersperg, "was robbed of jewels to the value of nearly $10,000 yesterday by an unknown man."  Those jewels included the wedding gifts from Florence's brother-in-law.  A workman was in the apartment because "all the electric bells in the house were out of order."  When Florence was called to the telephone, the workman grabbed her "heart-shaped silver box on the bureau" and left.

Less than a month later, on May 9, 1901, The New York Times reported that Prince Francis Auersperg had declared bankruptcy.  The article explained that his problems arose "out of a real estate transaction which took place in Austria, in which the Prince obtained possession and ownership of an old ancestral estate belonging to [Count Ernest and Countess Gabrielle Coreth] and never paid them for it."  The couple sued him for $40,000 (about $1.5 million today).  The New York Times said, "His visible assets he enumerated as twelve pairs of silk stockings."  Luckily, Edward Hazard had wisely put his wedding present into Florence's sole control.

Then, on March 30, 1903, The World titled an article, "Doctor Of Royal Birth Is Sued."  Prince Auersperg had borrowed $1,000 from Theodore Marburg in 1901 and failed to repay it.

The couple's relationship finally faltered following the death of Florence's father in 1905.  He left her a large inheritance and her husband insisted that she transfer it into his name.  Well aware of his financial history, Florence refused.  It resulted in her leaving him and moving into her mother's home in  Seabright, New Jersey.  She obtained a divorce in 1915 and married businessman John J. Murphy on May 1 that year.

In the meantime, The Wickliffe attracted several artistic residents.  Living here in 1903 was photographer Julius Ludovici.  He catered to well-heeled patrons and produced informal portraits with hand-colored tints.  He had a "photographic and crayon studio" on Fifth Avenue and, during the summer social season, a studio in Newport.

This charming portrait of a child--so unlike the stiff, posed images of most photographers--was typical of Ludovici's work.  from the Getty Museum Collection.

Also living here at the time were H. R. Humphries and Henry A. Ferguson.  Humphries advertised in the New-York Tribune on November 24, 1907 that he, "teaches singing, from rudiments of voice placing to artistic finishing for concerts, oratorio and church work, at his studio, No. 226 West 78th street."

Landscape artist Henry Augustus Ferguson, who lived here with his wife, Eleanor, and daughter, was born in Glen Falls, New York around 1842.  (The New York Times said, "his exact age was not known, as he never confided it even to his most intimate associates.)  He started painting in his teens and, according to The Times, "first gained recognition following a world tour in which he painted many pictures in Mexico, Italy, and Egypt."

This portrait of Henry August Ferguson may have been posed in his Wickliffe apartment.  via Seraphin Gallery.

In January 1911, he gave a private exhibition of American landscapes at the Century Association.  Two months later, on March 20, he became ill.  Pneumonia developed and he died in his apartment two days later.

A prominent resident at the time was author, artist and explorer Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh.  Born in McConnelsville, Ohio on September 13, 1853, he began exploring as a youth and was part of the expedition that found the Escalante River, the last unknown river in the United States, and discovered the Henry Mountains.

Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh, Touring Topics, November 1929 

In 1904 Dellenbaugh co-founded the Explorers Club.  While living here, in 1909 he was appointed librarian of the American Geographical Society.  Among his books are Breaking the Wilderness, published in 1905; the 1908 In the Amazon Jungle; and Fremont and '49, first published in 1913.

Dellenbaugh joined another expedition in 1923.  On November 11, The New York Times poetically reported, "The roaring, rapid-strewn reaches of the Colorado River, plunging down to the Gulf of California between the towering cliffs of the Grand Canyon, once more have been conquered."  Dellenbaugh was a member of the Geological Survey expedition headed by Colonel C. H. Birdseye.

Another writer living here by 1914 was journalist and author John Walker Harrington.  Born on July 8, 1868 in Plattsburgh, Missouri, he was on the staff of the New York Herald.  Among his works was the 1900 children's book The Jumping Kangaroo and the Apple Butter Cat. 

Illustrator Paul Goold returned to 226 West 78th Street and to his wife, the former Edith Chapman, after serving on the front in World War I.  He served as a captain with the First National Army and was celebrated with his comrades on October 16, 1918 as the members of the "Lost Battalion" of the Battle of Argonne.  Born in 1875, Goold began his career as an illustrator on the Portland [Maine] Sunday Press and Sunday Times after high school.  In 1899 he joined the art staff of The New York Times, leaving four years later to work as a magazine illustrator.  

Now back home, he opened a studio in Carnegie Hall.  He and Edith were still living in The Wickliffe on December 7, 1925 when he "jumped or fell from his studio on the twelfth floor of Carnegie Hall through a skylight into a hallway four floors below," as reported by The New York Times.  The article said, "The crash of the body plunging through the skylight aroused artists and musicians in near-by studios."  Goold had left a letter for Edith in the studio.  He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital with a fractured skull and died a few hours later.  Goold's private funeral was held in the apartment on December 10.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The press coverage of residents became less positive in the Depression years.  On November 28, 1931, for instance, Stephen A. Tillinghast and Joseph D. Kogan, presumably roommates, were arrested with 15 others as "a group of alleged racketeers who are said to have smuggled aliens into the United States," according to The New York Times.

Five years later, on May 14, 1936, 26-year-old dancer Margaret Rand was arrested for operating a "questionable 'studio'," as described by The New York Times.  Rand hired young women to provide "private dancing instructions."  Police highly suspected that dancing was not the only activity being practiced there.

In 1961, the once-proud apartment building was converted to a single-room-occupancy hotel.  Expectedly, not all of the residents were upstanding.  At 5:30 on the morning of October 5, 1968, two patrolmen saw smoke billowing out of an apartment window.  They rushed in and broke down the door of Antonio Cartagena who was semiconscious on the burning bed.  They extinguished the fire themselves, then discovered "three pistols, .22- and .25-caliber automatics and a .33-caliber revolver, on a night table next to the bed," reported The New York Times.  Cartagena was treated for smoke inhalation and then taken into custody.

image via apartments.com

A renovation completed in 1973 returned 226 West 78th Street to apartments, seven per floor.  Although nothing survives of George F. Pelham's 1899 interiors, the exterior survives remarkable intact.

The 1904 Van Cordlandt - 1240 Park Avenue

 

photo by Deansfa

In the late 19th century, the soot-belching locomotives that ran down the middle of Park Avenue made the thoroughfare unappealing.  But with the trains converted to electricity, magnificent residences and upscale apartment buildings began appearing along the avenue.   In 1903, William F. Rohrig broke ground for a six-story apartment building, The Van Cortlandt, at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 96th Street.  Designed by George F. Pelham, it was completed the following year at a cost of $195,000, or about $7 million in 2026.

Although The Van Cordlandt turned its shoulder to the busy avenue, its entrance on East 96th Street took the more enviable address of 1240 Park Avenue.  Pelham's tripartite Renaissance Revival design included a rusticated limestone base and an off-set entrance portico.  Its paired, polished granite Scamozzi columns upheld a substantial entablature that announced the building's name. It was crowned by a stone balustrade.

image via streeteasy.com

The brick-faced, four-story midsection was trimmed in limestone.  The Renaissance motif was carried out with arched and triangular pediments, occasional cornucopia-framed windows, and faux balconies.  Pelham emphasized horizontality at the top section with two running bandcourses.  A distinguished stone balustrade ran along the bracketed cornice.

The areaway was protected by high, wrought iron fencing.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1904 (copyright expired)

The Apartment Houses of the Metropolis described:

The suites are of seven, eight and nine rooms with two baths.  Parlors and libraries are finished in mahogany, whilst the dining-rooms are in unique quartered oak, with a high wainscoting and Dutch plate shelving.  The ceilings have oak beams.

There were four apartments per floor, the rents for which ranged from $1,050 to $1,400 per year--or $3,150 to $4,200 per month today.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1904 (copyright expired)

The Van Cordlandt filled with well-to-do residents.  Among them was Mrs. Mollie Anderson who became entangled in a debacle worthy of a silent film comedy on the afternoon of December 8, 1913.  That day the city experienced a gale with 88-mile-per-hour winds.  The following day, The New York Times reported, "Many persons were injured, much damage was done to property."  Mollie Anderson was unfortunate enough to have had ventured out.

She was walking along West End Avenue between 70th and 71st Street when, according to The New York Times, "she had occasion to open her handbag."  A gust of wind blew $50 in small bills into the air.  (The amount would translate to more than $1,600 today.)  As Mollie ran to gather up the bills, two rings--one containing five diamonds and the other a wedding ring--tumbled out of her bag "and were carried along by the wind," said the article.

Her increasingly panicked scrambling made the situation worse.  Two bank books fell out of her purse and were blown away.  Mollie's cries attracted a crowd as well as Patrolman Moskowitz.  People ran through the windstorm snatching at bills.  Mollie Anderson's struggle did not end well.  The New York Times reported, "The patrolman found only $17 of the $50 lost.  The bank books were found by a boy, but the rings, if found, were not returned."

Among the socially visible couples in The Van Cortlandt during the Depression years were Dr. William Wallace Whitelock and his wife, the former Baroness Mary von Stockhausen of Berlin.  The couple had one son, Otto von Stockhausen Whitelock.  Their country house, Tre Terrazzi, was in Pelham Manor, New York

An educator and author, Whitelock was born in Baltimore in 1870 and traced his ancestry to Sir Bulstrode Whitelock, the 17th century Governor of Windsor Castle, and to Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Having received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1893, he worked for The New York Times, interviewing celebrated figures like Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, George Moore, Rudyard Kipling, and Zola.  Starting in 1915, he was a contributor to the weekly humor magazine Life.  Among his several books were the  1903 The Literary Guillotine, the 1907 Foregone Verses, and a novel, When Kings Go Forth To Battle, published in 1907.

Born Baroness Mary Louise von Stockhausen in London, Mary Whitelock was educated in England, France and Germany.  She was presented at the Bavarian Court, the Austrian Court and the Court of St. James at the turn of the century, and in 1905 was given a private audience by Pope Pius X.

Admired by her beauty, she was a favorite model for prominent artists, and at one point a portrait of her by Stroese was placed on exhibition in the Crystal Palace.  Additionally, she was an accomplished singer and debuted in Paris with the Concerts Lamoureux and was later offered a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

As a young woman, Mary Louise translated English works into German and French.  It was during that time that she met William Whitelock and they were married in London in 1901.

The Whitelocks' entertaining was widely followed by the society columns.  On December 31, 1937, for instance, The New York Sun reported that the couple "have returned to their residence at 1240 Park avenue, and will entertain at a reception on Sunday."  Among the guests that afternoon was Mary Dimmick Harrison, the former First Lady.  

Mary Harrison was a close friend of the Whitelocks.  The following year, on April 25, 1938, The Sun reported, "Dr. and Mrs. William Wallace Whitelock gave a dinner last night at their home, 1240 Park avenue, in honor of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison."

Also socially visible were Colonel George Chase Lewis and his wife, the former Louise Manning.  The couple had two daughters, Flora Louise and Virginia.  On December 29, 1938, The New York Times reported that the Lewises "gave a tea dance yesterday at the Officers Club on Governors Island.  The event served as a coming-out party for Miss Virginia J. Lewis."  The article mentioned, "Her sister, Miss Flora Louise Lewis, made her debut in the same setting several seasons ago."

At the time of her debut, Virginia Lewis was a freshman at Bryn Mawr College.  Possibly inspired by her father's military career, as war spread across Europe, she turned her attention to America's defense.  On June 27, 1940, The New York Times reported on the swearing in "of three volunteers into the first New York rifle squad of the America First Assembly of Women."  Among the volunteers was Virginia Lewis.  She and the other two girls had trained for six months.

A fascinating resident at the time was Caroline Sanders Truax, the widow of former New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles H. Truax, who died in 1910.  Caroline was one of the first women admitted to the New York State bar.  Born in Cincinnati, she was a graduate of the New York University Law School.  She practiced law briefly, turning her attention to conditions in what was then termed insane asylums.  The New York Times remarked that she "did much to better the conditions of inmates, making a study of American, English and Oriental asylums."

Like Mary Louise Whitelock, Caroline Sanders was a beauty in her youth.  She married Charles Truax in 1896 and on a tour of Europe (possibly their honeymoon), they visited the studio of French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme.  It resulted in Caroline's posing for the artist.  The portrait, with Caroline depicted as Sappho, a Grecian poet, was well received and when it arrived in America, was exhibited several times.

Gérôme's portrait of Caroline Sanders Traux hung in the Van Cordlandt apartment.  from the collection of Bowdoin University.

In the meantime, the Whitelocks continued to host glittering dinner parties and receptions.  On May 2, 1938, The New York Post reported on their dinner party in honor of composer Aurelio Giorni.  There were 22 "distinguished" guests, including pianist George Copeland.  This dinner party would stand out.

During a gathering in the apartment earlier that year, Copeland boasted that "his long residence in Spain and his experience with Spanish herbs and spices qualified him to rank among the best spaghetti cooks in New York."  The New York Post reported, "Mrs. Whitelock immediately challenged his contention on the ground that her many years of residence in Italy gave her a claim to the title."  

And so, this dinner party included a contest.  Copeland prepared his spaghetti and Mary Louise hers.  The article explained:

The spaghetti was brought in by two white-capped chefs, bearing two silver platters, one containing Mr. Copeland's effort, and the other Mrs. Whitelock's.  Each guest member of the jury received a portion from each salver, and was required to determine which he or she preferred.  They were given through the salad and desert courses to record their votes.

The article concluded, "needless to say the hostess saw to it that Mr. Copeland won."

In 1939, Dr. William Wallace Whitelock was struck "by a drunken vagrant on the street," according to The New York Times.  He never fully recovered from his injuries and the following year, on January 28, 1940, died in the couple's Van Corlandt apartment at the age of 70.  

The New York Times reported on June 26, 1949, "Mrs. William Wallace Whitelock, the former Baroness Mary Louise von Stockhausen, who was a prominent figure in early twentieth century literary, artistic and musical circles, died on Friday at Tre Terrazzi...after an illness of several months."

An intricate marble mosaic "carpet" floor, a stone fireplace, Caen stone walls, and a beamed ceiling gave the Van Cordlandt's lobby a refined air.  image via streeteasy.com

Living here in the early 1960s were William L. Brett and his wife.  Born in Przemysl, Poland in 1913, he was a naturalized American.  The European representative of the George E. Failing Company (a division of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company), he made routine business trips to Poland.

On February 9, 1962, he checked out of his Warsaw hotel to make a trip to Katowice, Poland.  After she heard nothing from him for a week, Mrs. Brett contacted the United States Embassy.  What they discovered was alarming.  The New York Times reported that he "has been held in [a] Warsaw jail for nearly three weeks on a charge of an illegal currency transaction."  It is unclear what the infraction was, but consul A. Gregory Nowakoski Jr., who visited him in the prison, said he "appeared to be in good health."

Among the Bretts' neighbors in the building were George A. Rosette, a former journalist and advertising executive, and his composer wife, the former Marion Savage.  After becoming a reporter for The Baltimore Sun in 1912, George opened an advertising agency the following year.  In 1925 the couple moved to New York and he began writing a column in The New York Daily Mirror, "Muse in Manhattan."  In 1940 he established the Rosette Advertising Agency and in 1946 began producing phonograph records as president of Corona Records, Inc.  The New York Times noted that Marion's songs were recorded by Corona Records.

Unfortunately, the distinguished rooftop balustrade has been removed.  But other than zig-zagging fire escapes that detract from George F. Pelham's design and the need for a gentle cleaning, The Van Cortlandt looks very much as it did in 1904 when it opened.

George F. Pelham's 1899 300 West 107th Street

 

Real estate developer George Klingman hired George F. Pelham to design a "stores and flat" building on the southwest corner of West End Avenue and 107th Street in the spring of 1898.  Pelham's plans, filed in July, projected the construction costs at $70,000, or about $2.73 million in 2025 terms.  Completed in 1899, the seven-story structure was designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  

The basement and first floor were clad in limestone.  Possibly because of the noticeable incline of 107th Street, Pelham placed the stores in the less visually obtrusive basement level.  The entrance atop a short stoop sat within a handsome portico of paired Ionic columns upholding an entablature of intricate Italian Renaissance-style carvings.  The upper floors were clad in deep red brick.  Pelham rounded the northern corners and gave the second and seventh floors decorative terra cotta bands.  Elaborate terra cotta bandcourses defined the four-story mid-section.  

image via Landmark West!

The entertainments held by the building's well-do-to tenants appeared in the society columns.  Such was the case on December 6, 1903, when The New York Times reported on Mrs. Meyer Heineman's large musicale "in honor of Mrs. Charles Fleischman, mother of Mayor Fleischman of Cincinnati, and Mrs. Louis Meyer of Cincinnati."  Eight artists performed that afternoon.

Among the several physicians who lived here in 1909 was Dr. Harry McDonald Peggs and his bride, Helen Crosby.  Peggs earned an annual income equal to $255,000 today according to court papers.  The couple was married on June 2 that year.  Unfortunately, their union was not a blissful one.  According to Helen two years later, almost immediately Dr. Peggs began a "reign of terror," by "cursing and beating her." 

On June 2, 1910, Helen reminded Harry that it was their first year anniversary.  He replied, "We won't be living together next year."  Harry, it seems, was already shopping for a new romantic companion.  On October 7, 1910, he did not come home and Helen later discovered he had "been in the company of a Miss Oliver Palmer" that night.  Afterward, he "paid attention to a Miss Dunston," according to Helen's divorce filing in October 1911.  The New York Times reported, "She said she found the doctor and Miss Dunston in his motor car before 993 Columbus Avenue at a quarter of twelve one night and told Miss Dunston that her companion was her husband and she should leave him."  Miss Dunston, according to Helen, "paid no attention to her remarks."  After the incident, Harry returned to 300 West 107th Street only to get changes of clothing.

While the Peggs faced off in court, the family of Simon Docter had an even more serious issue with which to deal.  Caroline Docter went missing in October.  After a search of several days, her body was discovered "in some bushes at 190th street and Fort Washington Avenue," as reported by The Sun on October 29, 1911.  On October 31, the newspaper reported, "The autopsy showed that Miss Doctor [sic] had died of carbolic acid poisoning and the case was entered as a suicide."

The forensic evidence of the scene where Caroline's body was discovered, however, prompted Coroner Feinberg to reconsider the suicide ruling.  The following day, The Sun reported, "he believed that the body had been carried there after her death."  Caroline's dress had been neatly arranged and the shrubbery was undisturbed.  (Feinberg explained that death by swallowing carbolic acid would be accompanied by "death struggles.")  Importantly, there was no bottle found at the scene.  Had Caroline taken the poison at the location, the container should have been nearby.  Feinberg ordered police to conduct a search for witnesses.

Dr. George Peasles Shears and his wife, the former Susan H. Moore, lived here at the time.  Shears was born in Dutchess County, New York on January 15, 1860 and graduated from the New York University Medical School in 1889.  He was assistant surgeon at the Babies' and Mother's Hospital and an instructor of obstetrics at the Cornell University Medical School.  

The New York Times noted that he "was the author of various monographs on medical and allied topics."  But medicine was not the physician's only passion.  The Evening Post said, "Dr. Shears was deeply read in metaphysics and was in particular a student of German thought."

Among the white collar tenants in the World War I years were William R. Clendinning, a 1915 graduate of Yale; George Jacob Soper, a director of the Metropolitan Designing Co. and treasurer and director of the Unity Brotherhood Association; and Edward M. Biggs, a director of Brokaw Brothers.  (Soper's wife filled her time with various causes.  In 1920 she was a member of the International Sunshine Society, the Legislative League, the Health Protective, and the Woman's Forum.)

Teresa Collins shared an apartment with her sister in 1925.  The 23-year-old, who worked as a private secretary in a large rubber firm, was instrumental in catching a conman that year.  Teresa's sister went on a vacation to the West and on the evening of August 10, while a female relative was visiting, someone knocked on the door.  The caller identified himself as "Detective Sergeant McDonald from Commissioner Enright's office," and said charges had been made against her, but "the matter could 'be straightened out for $500.'"

Upon telling the man that her sister was in Wyoming, he pulled his revolver and ordered the women into the bathroom.

"How about the money?" he asked.

Teresa and her visitor gathered up $300.  The detective left, saying he would return for the balance.

The savvy young woman immediately called the police.  They arranged a scheme by which Teresa would give a signal to the hall boy (an employee in high-end apartment buildings who were on call for helping with packages and such) to notify Detectives Fitzgerald and Josephs.

The next morning, the "detective" returned and demanded his $200.  Acting on the arranged signal, the hallboy called police headquarters.  Teresa stalled long enough for Fitzgerald and Josephs to arrive and arrest Joseph O'Leary.  As it turned out, O'Leary had been a policeman until being fired three years earlier.

In 1930, Mrs. A. Wells Green invited Lillian Reute to stay in her fourth-floor apartment while her houseguest underwent treatment.  Lillian, who was 63, was the widow of a General Electric Company executive and lived in Schenectady.  On June 24 she fatally plunged to the sidewalk.  The Standard Union reported, "Detectives believe she had fallen from a chair on the fire escape landing."

Lillian Reute fell to her death from the fourth-floor fire escape.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A renovation completed in 1948 resulted in three or four apartments per floor.  Among the first residents of the remodeled suites were Dr. Siegfried Boxer and his wife, the former Ella Weinberger.  Born in Vienna, Austria, Boxer graduated from the University of Vienna and served as chief of obstetrical surgery at the Lucina Hospital.  He escaped Nazi Austria to America in 1940.  When the couple moved into 300 West 107th Street, he had been director of the clinic at Gouverneur Hospital for four years.

Boxer assuredly was well acquainted with another tenant, gynecologist and obstetrician Dr. Robert Koehler and his wife, Mitzi.  Like Boxer, Koehler was born in Vienna and graduated from the University of Vienna.  He headed the Vienna Women's Hospital until 1938 when the Germans occupied Austria.  Like the Boxers, he and his wife fled to New York.  He was resident gynecologist at the Brooklyn Hebrew Home and Hospital for the Aged and served as a gynecologist at Beth Israel Hospital.

In the spring of 1960, Clara Panken moved into an apartment here.  The 41-year-old had suffered recently.  She and her former husband, attorney Morton L. Panken, were divorced in 1954 and Clara was given custody of their adopted daughter Bess, who was five at the time.  On March 24, 1960, a few weeks before moving into 300 West 107th Street, Bess, now nine years old, fell to her death from a window of their West End Avenue apartment.  After an investigation, the girl's death was ruled accidental.

Shockingly, on July 2, Clara Panken walked into the 126th Street police station and confessed that she had murdered her adopted daughter.  Described by police as being "conscience-stricken," she said that on that afternoon she picked up Bess at P.S. 75.  At home, she took her into the bathroom, "which has a 20-by-30-inch window," according to The New York Times, and told Bess "she would teach her to fly."  She persuaded her to climb through the window and onto the ledge, then pushed her to her death.  Clara was charged with homicide.

A fascinating tenant arrived in 1962.  Artist Alice Neel was born in 1900 in Philadelphia, but spent most of her life in New York.  Self-taught, she painted mostly portraits, using as models her Harlem neighbors, "as well as artists, activists, mothers, children, and a series of pregnant women, a subject long ignored in the history of art," according to her biography by the MoMA.  In 1974, the Whitney held a retrospective of her work.

Alice Neel died in 1984.  Afterward, Phoebe Hoban visited her eight-room apartment.  In her 2010 Alice Neel, The Art of Not Sitting Pretty she writes:

There are paintings everywhere--on the walls, stacked in the hall.  Everything has been left just as it was when Neel lived and worked here, covering hundreds of canvases with ruthlessly honest portraits of the people who intrigued her, from neighborhood children to Andy Warhol.

Alice Neel's family retained the apartment, keeping it as a type of time capsule of her residency here.

Alice Neel's granddaughter, Olivia, looks over her shoulder in this January 5, 1979 photograph in the apartment.  Alice Neel, People Come First, by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

The building was remodeled again in 1986.  Other than the commercial basement level, little of the building's exterior has been changed.

photographs by the author