The Lost Samuel and Abigail Waterbury House - 34 East 30th Street

 

When this photograph was taken in 1912, buildings had crowded around the property.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Samuel Waterbury was born on January 25, 1795 and his wife, the former Abigail Williams, was born on March 21, 1806.  By the 1840s, when the couple lived in a vintage house on Beekman Street, Waterbury was a well-established cabinetmaker.  And their once-refined neighborhood was being rapidly transformed by commerce.

The couple were last listed on Beekman Street in 1848.  They had purchased land north of the established city on East 30th Street between Madison and Fourth Avenues.  (The latter would become Park Avenue South in 1959).

The Waterburys erected a 34-foot-wide frame house on the plot.  Two-and-a-half stories tall, its charming semi-rural design straddled the Greek Revival and Italianate styles.  The former was reflected in the sidelights and transom of the paneled door, in the Doric corner pilasters, and in the "end returns" of the gable eaves.  The Italianate style influenced the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, the exceptionally tall second floor openings, and the wooden decorations atop the porch and roofline.

The house sat back on the property behind an especially tall iron fence and gate.  On the property was an apple orchard and decades later Abigail would tell a guest, "I could see from my windows the sun rise over one river and set over the other."

Samuel was one of four children born to Henry and Margaret Waterbury.  None of his siblings would marry and at some point his only brother, David H. (born 1807), moved into the East 30th Street house.

Samuel Waterbury retired in 1866.  By then, brownstone houses had begun appearing in the neighborhood.  As more and more crowded in around the Waterburys' house, it became a picturesque anachronism on the block.

David H. Waterbury died on January 14, 1873.  His funeral was held in the parlor on the 17th.  Five years later, on July 26, 1878, Samuel Waterbury died.  His funeral was held in the house three days later.

Abigail Williams Waterbury remained in the house, maintaining its pristine flowerbeds and tidy yard.  Gradually, the outbuildings and the orchard were sold off, until Abigail's carefully preserved slice of 1849 countryside was surrounded by modern structures.

On April 20, 1904, Abigail celebrated her 99th birthday by hosting "a dinner party to three of her friends," as reported by the New York Herald.  A week later, on May 29, 1904, the newspaper remarked:

A little white frame house, two stories high, with a pointed attic above them, a narrow piazza, a little stretch of ground in front and a white picket fence [sic] running between its grounds and the sidewalk is an odd thing to find in a great city like New York of to-day.

The article said that Abigail, "except for her servants and a woman companion, lives alone in her quaint abode, which has been her home for half a century."  The newspaper described Abigail as "a neighborhood celebrity" and "a fine looking woman."  She was particularly fond of "all dumb animals," said the article, which said she "often stopped on the street to pat a dog or cat when she was out walking."

The New York Herald went on to describe the house, saying in part:

Passersby can see right through the rooms of the first story.  The shades are drawn high and the old fashioned white lace curtains do not hide from view the masses of beautiful flowers standing in the drawing room, or the green parrot in a big cage before the window of the back parlor.  The flowers are famous in the neighborhood.  Relatives send them in from the country twice a week.

Abigail's birthday dinner would be her last.  On April 22, 1905, one month before her 100th birthday, she died in the house.  In reporting her death, the New York Herald reminded readers, "For over half a century she had lived in the little old fashioned frame house in East Thirtieth street, which with its prim flower beds in front had for many years been a curious landmark among the brick and brownstone houses which line the street on both sides and which had grown to be landmarks themselves."

Abigail's funeral in the drawing room on April 22, 1905 would be the last function in the house.  Seven months later, the Waterburys' furnishings were auctioned.  The announcement gives a hint of the couple's comfortable interiors: "Grandfather's clock, Colonial chairs, tables, old paintings, engravings, miniatures, arms, armor, curios, ivory carvings, draperies, genuine antiques."

For decades, developers and real estate operators had been waiting in the wings for the Waterbury property to become available.  On May 18, 1905, The Evening Post reported, "The most noteworthy [real estate news] was the sale by the Waterbury estate, of the frame thirty-four-foot dwelling at No. 34 East Thirtieth Street, only another evidence, of course, of the insatiable demand for property in the Park Avenue neighborhood."  

The purchase by George Rosenfeld initiated a series of turnovers.  He resold it to the New York Operating Company in April 1908, which sold it two years later.  On March 12, 1910, The New York Times reported, "The purchaser is a builder, who will erect a business structure on the site."

The quaint Waterbury house was demolished.  Its idyllic site was used, temporarily, by baseball teams.  On March 23, 1913, The New York Times remarked, "Pee Wee Park, that now famous baseball lot at 34 East Thirtieth Street, was invaded yesterday by a squad of militiamen from the Twelfth Regiment, looking for baseball action."

Teams would have to find a new venue in 1921.  That year, on May 19, The New York Times reported that George F. Pelham had filed plans for a nine-story office and store building.  That structure survives.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The Skinny 144 First Avenue

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

In the 1830s, the eastern blockfront of First Avenue between Eighth and Ninth Streets was lined with low Federal-style store-and-house buildings.  Change would soon come as throngs of immigrants inundated the neighborhood.  Private homes were converted to rooming houses and vintage buildings on the avenues were replaced with tenements and stores.  Around 1851, a row of Greek Revival store-and-flat buildings was erected at 142 through 148 First Avenue.

The buildings were faced in red running bond brick above the storefronts.  Their Greek Revival design included featureless brownstone lintels and wooden corbeled cornices.  No. 144 First Avenue was just 16-feet wide.  As early as 1852, Mary McGuinness, a widow, lived here, working as a seamstress.  She may have operated the upper floors as a boarding house.  Living here at the same time were Edward McGorren, a real estate agent, and carpenter James Robinson.

At the same time, Gaius H. Nash operated his pharmacy in the store.  He had a short commute to work, since he lived in the new building next door at 146 First Avenue.  (He and his family would move above the store around 1857.)  After working for Nash for several years, an employee became disgruntled by his lack of advancement in 1854.  In June he advertised:

To Druggists--The Advertiser having had eight years experience in the compounding of medicine, is anxious to obtain a clerk's situation.  Best city Reference.  Apply at Dr. Nash's store, 144 First avenue, for two days.

Calling the proprietor "Dr. Nash" was a stretch.  It would not be until around 1859 the he closed his drugstore here and enrolled in the New York University School of Medicine.  He would earn his title "doctor" in 1864.

Sharing the upper floors with the Nash family in 1856 were  a young Irish-born couple, John J. and Margaret Ahern (John worked as a clerk); the extended Ramsey family; and policeman Charles McMillen.  

Margaret Ahern, "formerly of the city of Cork, Ireland," as reported by The New York Sun, died in her rooms here on November 28, 1856 at the age of 18.  Her funeral was held in the couple's rooms.

There would be another funeral in the building within a few months.  The Samuel Ramsey family, who would remain at least through 1865, crowded into an apartment.  They included adult sons James (an engineer) and Robert, and the latter's wife, Margaret, and their three-year-old son, John.  On May 1, 1857, little John succumbed to "congestion of the brain," as described by the New York Herald.  His funeral was held here on June 2.

Joanna Regiersky opened a jewelry store in the former pharmacy space in 1859.  On January 31, 1860, she took two $1,000 St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company bonds to Jacob Little & Co. on Wall Street to have them cashed.  The New York Times reported, "but as it was after banking hours, she was requested to call the next day."  In fact, the astute clerk was stalling.  He recognized the bonds as having been stolen from the home of Alexander H. Nones two months earlier.  When Joanna returned, an officer was waiting for her.

As it turned out, the burglar (who also took $400 worth of jewelry) was Joanna Regiersky's brother-in-law, Julius Werner.  She told the officer that he had promised her $100 if she successfully cashed the bonds.  Joanna was ordered to send him a message saying that he was needed to "attend the business."  When he arrived, he and Joanna were arrested.  

The incident apparently ended Joanna Regiersky's jewelry shop.  The space became the barbershop of Franz Haberstroh.  (He would alternatively spell his first name Frank and Francis.)

John Wille, a tailor, not only occupied an apartment here by 1868, he owned the building.  Also living here that year was Charles A. Cappa, a musician.  In June 1868, Wille sold the structure to Franz Haberstroh.

Haberstroh did not retain ownership for very long.  By 1872, he closed his barbershop and sold 144 First Avenue to Michael Klopf and his wife, Anna M. H. Klopf.  The couple had three children, Henry, Katie and Lizzie.  Michael opened his "stoves" store in the ground floor space.  It may have been Klopf who slightly updated the appearance of the building by having cast metal cornices added to the lintels.

Michael Klopf died in 1900.  The store space became home to Paul Limbach's "butter and egg" store.  The entrepreneur struggled in business.  On November 9, 1904, the New York Produce Review and American Creamery reported that Paul Limbach's business had failed.  He, nevertheless, rallied and on March 28, 1906, The City Record reported that he had been given a license "to sell milk at No. 144 First avenue."  Only four months later, on July 31, The New York Times reported that he had declared bankruptcy.

While the simple blocks and wooden fascia board were typical of the Greek Revival style, the full-height of the top floor and the slightly-molded cornice showed the emerging Italianate style.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Rutilio Colorosso, a coal dealer, his wife and six children arrived from Italy in 1892 and moved into 144 First Avenue in 1900.  In the summer of 1911, he opened a second coal store at 406 East 9th Street.  The Italian community was plagued by a terroristic group called La Mano Nera, or the Black Hand, at the time.  The Italian-American group used violence, including assassinations and bombings, to extort money from well-to-do Italians.  On September 11, 1911, The Evening World reported, "Outward evidence of prosperity, manifested by the opening of a new place of business for the sale of coal, wood, ice and cheap wine has brought upon Rutilio Colorosso the unwelcome attention of Black Hand extortioners."

Within four weeks of opening the new store, Colorosso received two Black Hand letters, each demanding $1,000.  They warned him that "he and his family would be blown to pieces in their home unless he paid the money," reported The New York Times.  Colorosso dismissed the letters until the night of September 4.

At 10:30, janitor David Leper locked the street door.  About an hour later, residents of the top floor heard someone walking on the roof.  Minutes later, a massive explosion shattered the doors "of every flat in the four stories of the building," reported The New York Times.  Plaster from the ceilings fell upon sleeping tenants.  The bomb had been placed directly in front of the Colorossos' door.  Where the door had been there was now a four-foot wide hole in the floor.  The article said, "In every room in the house debris crumbled from the ceilings to a depth of several inches."  The Colorossos' 15-year-old son, Joseph, "was thrown out of his bed against the opposite wall."  Happily, he was not hurt.

Two days later, The New York Times reported on the arrest of Giuseppe Costabile, "a shrewd, narrow-eyed Italian," for the bombing.  The article said, "the police believe they have caught the chief and master-mind of a gang of blackmailers who have set most of the thirteen bomb explosions reported in the last month."  If Costabile was, indeed, the bomber, his arrest did not deter the determined extortionists.

That same day, Colorosso received another letter and the following week, on the morning of September 11, a second bomb was discovered in the building.  The Evening World said, "The explosive was dynamite, properly equipped with a detonating cap.  Only two inches of the twelve-inch fuse was burned.  Doubtless the fuse went out while the man who placed the bomb was running way."

The New-York Tribune reported, "The bomb, the police said, was unmistakably designed for Frank [sic] Colarusso [sic]."  The Evening World added, "The bomb found at Colorosso's floor this morning was of sufficient strength to have blown in the front of the building."

In 1940, the sheet metal cornices over the windows were deteriorating.  One of top floor examples had already fallen off.  via the NYC Dept of Records Information Services.

Most of the residents of 144 First Avenue continued to be Italian in the succeeding decades.  Salvatore Rezze and Charles Carnesi lived here in 1929.  On June 1 that year, the Daily Star reported that they had been arrested as part of a "counterfeiting gang."  Rezze, Carnesi, and Anthony Scarpello were arrested after a sharp-eyed taxi driver recognized the $5 bill they paid him was a fake.  Their capture led to "the seizure of the 'plant' where, it is believed, several hundred thousand dollars in bogus bills have been manufactured since the first of the year," said a Secret Service spokesperson.

By the Depression years, the store was home to the Italian American Grocery & Delicatessen.  At the end of Prohibition, Fortunato Liberto obtained a liquor license for the business.

The contemporary building next door, one-third wider than No. 144, received a replacement cornice at some point.  photograph by Anthony Bellov

Today a laundromat occupies the ground floor where a modern storefront and replacement entrance doors can be seen.  The Victorian window cornices are gone, but the vintage wooden terminal cornice survives.

many thanks to Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post.

The Rosenmiller Drugstore Building - 172 Eighth Avenue

 

In 1843, John Hoey and his family lived above his grocery store at 172 Eighth Avenue.  The three-story, brick-faced building was a near match to several Greek Revival-style store-and-house structures recently built on the avenue.  The residential entrance, flanked by narrow sidelights, sat above two steps.  Typical of the style, the upper floors included unassuming brownstone lintels and a modest wooden cornice. 

The Greek Revival entrance to the upper floors was relatively intact as late as 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As early as 1848, Lewis Adolphus Rosenmiller's pharmacy shared the ground floor with Hoey's grocery.  Rosenmiller's family moved into the upper floors and the Hoey family relocated to 187 West 20th Street.

Born on February 14, 1807, Rosenmiller married Ann Grier Barnitz on November 26, 1844.  The couple had five children: Mary K., Charles Louis, Adolphus, Jane, and Mary Cope.

Early 19th century pharmacists were called chemists because they mixed the prescriptions they filled.  But ready-made cures were also available at the Rosenmiller drugstore, like Dr. Caywood's Preparation.  An advertisement on August 26, 1848, touted it as "A never-failing remedy for hard or soft Corns."  And in January 1853, Jones' Italian Chemical Soap and Coral Hair Restorative were offered here.  "One cures every skin disease, chapped or sore flesh, eruptions, scurvy, &c.; the other dresses the hair finely, stops it falling, makes it grow, &c.," said an advertisement.

By the time of the latter ad, John Hoey had moved his grocery slightly northward, to 195 Eighth Avenue.  Lewis Rosenmiller's drugstore had become an important fixture in the Chelsea community, and Rosenmiller was a trustee of the 16th Ward's public schools.

Around 1857, Rosenmiller took in a partner, Alexander Menzies and the new partner moved into the upper floors with the Rosenmiller family for about a year.

The store and two others on Eighth Avenue were the victims of a con artist on March 25, 1857.  That day, Charles Macomber entered each of the drugstores and "asked for a bottle of Kellinger's liniment, and offered in payment at each place, a five dollar bank note on the Buffalo City Bank," explained the New-York Tribune.  He then left with his liniment and $4.50 in change.  The proprietors would later discover that the $5 notes were worthless.  The scam cost the druggists about $200 in today's money.

Rosenmiller's partnership with Menzies was short-lived.  By the early 1860s, the store was again being run solely by Rosenmiller.  It was, as well, a gathering place.  The New York Herald would later recall:

His office was the resort of the literati and medical practitioners of the locality, and it was the scene of many a learned discussion on medical science, politics and questions of the day.

Margaret Rebecca Rosenmiller, obviously a relative, was suffering from consumption in 1866, the mid-19th century term for tuberculosis.  Even Rosenmiller's medical knowledge could not save the 20-year-old and she died on the evening of May 9.  Her funeral was held in the family's parlor the following evening.

At the time, the Rosenmillers' landlady was Janet S. Pound.  She sold the building to Andrew R. Leggat on February 23, 1871 and he continued to rent the property to Rosenmiller.

On his 68th birthday, February 14, 1875, Lewis Adolphus Rosenmiller suffered a fatal stroke.  In reporting his death, the New York Herald praised:

He was one of the original pioneers of the Sixteenth ward, when that locality was known as Chelsea village and all of Manhattan Island above Bleecker street was looked upon as being in the country.

Calling Rosenmiller "a man of irreproachable character," the article said, "on the west side no one was more widely known and respected."  

Eight months later, on October 26, 1875, a succinct advertisement appeared in the New York Herald:  "Drug store for sale--To close an estate.  172 Eighth avenue."

The drugstore was converted to Isaac Westervelt's butcher store.  Widow Ann Burns now operated the upper two floors as a boarding house.  Her residents in 1876 were James Cullan, who was in the furniture business; real estate agent James Gallagher; John McDade, a drover; and engineer John Sims.

Isaac Westervelt got into trouble with Sanitary Inspector Brennan.  On July 10, 1878 he was charged for the second time "in violation of the Sanitary Code."  He was charged with "housing a large number of chickens."

The butcher store soon changed hands.  Max Meyer ran it in 1879, followed by Leon Winkler by the early 1890s.  Winkler moved his business to New Jersey in 1894.  Four years later, his name was involved in a mysterious case.

On July 1, 1898, the New York Herald reported that a young man had stumbled across a metal safety deposit box while "crossing the Hackensack meadows in North Bergen."  Police opened it and found "Italian and French bonds to the face value of $5,000.  There was also a bill of exchange for 100 gulden, payable to Leon Winkler, and a policy of insurance for $1,000, made out in the same name with the address, 172 Eighth avenue, New York."

Presumably, the safety deposit box had been stolen from Winkler, but no report had been filed.  Police went to 172 Eighth Avenue and found that Franz Amb was running his delicatessen in the shop.  The landlady, Mrs. Langtree, told them, according to the New York Herald, that "she remembered Mr. Winkler as a man who had kept a butcher shop there for about three years, but had moved away...She had never heard him speak of having been robbed."  Whether the mystery was ever solved is unclear.

On June 12, 1899, Andrew Leggat transferred title to the building to Jennie Z. Leggat.  Occupying the store at the time was Henry Beck's butcher shop.

Among the tenants of 172 Eighth Avenue in 1920 was Joseph B. Franklin Jr.  On the night of April 23 that year, just three months after Prohibition was enacted, he drove to Brooklyn and met two men who had whisky in their truck.  Unfortunately for all three, Patrolman Harry Cohen had the day off in recognition of his being awarded a medal for bravery.  Cohen celebrated by taking his wife to the theater.

The New-York Tribune reported that as Cohen was purchasing the tickets, "he saw a man take a case of whisky from the tail of a truck, put it into an auto runabout and start away."  The article said that Cohen, "forgetting all about his day off," sprang into action.  He overtook Franklin, then ordered him to follow the truck.  All three men were arrested and the truck, containing $7,000 worth of whisky, was confiscated.

After having been owned by her family for half a century, Eliza Leggat sold 172 Eighth Avenue in August 1921.  The following year, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. opened a branch of its grocery store chain here.  It was replaced by 1940 by the Eigen Supply Co., a plumbing and heating supply store.

In the meantime, Edward Falzey, who lived here in 1934, had a shady background.  When a friend was charged with a crime that year, he accompanied him to the Tombs Courthouse on November 28 "to lend him moral support," as reported by The New York Sun.  His friendly deed landed him behind bars, however.

Other than the storefront, in 1940 the building's 1840s architectural elements survived.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Also in the courtroom was Sol Drapkin, the owner of a Ninth Avenue pawnshop.  The Sun reported, "He caught sight of Falzey sitting among the spectators and pointed him out to detectives as one of the men who held him up last March 26 and robbed him of $23,000 worth of jewelry."  Falzey was charged not only with the robbery, but with violating the Sullivan law (an early gun control statute), and felonious assault.

Living here in 1979 was William Alicia, who worked as a taxi driver.  On May 11 that year, the 37-year-old picked up an inebriated customer who refused to pay the $13 fare.  Alicia took him to the 17th Precinct station.  At around 7:45 p.m., while they were talking to Sgt. Harry Fagan at the front desk, a frustrated Alicia "hit the passenger with his hand once in the back of the neck," as reported by The New York Times.  The man fell to the floor unconscious.  He was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he died a short while later.  William Alicia was taken into custody, charged with manslaughter.

A laundromat occupied the store in the newly-remodeled building in 1980.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services. 

A renovation completed in 1973 removed the 1840s Greek Revival entryway and lowered the replacement to grade.  Brick lintels replaced the brownstone, and a faux corbel table of brick substituted the wooden cornice.

Easily ignored today, the diminutive structure belies its rich history of more than 180 years.

photographs by the author

The James Condie Drugstore Building - 166 Eighth Avenue

 

Around 1844, a brick-faced house and store was erected at 166 Eighth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets.  Three stories tall, its Greek Revival design included a single-doored residential entrance flanked by pilasters and four-paned sidelights.  A commodious transom allowed natural light into the foyer.  The building's six-over-six-paned windows sat upon plain brownstone sills and wore understated stone lintels.

Archibald Donnelly operated a tavern here in 1845, but his venture was short lived.  As early as 1848 James Condie and his family lived in the upper floors.  He was a partner in the Gabaudan & Condie apothecary that now occupied the store.

The drugstore was a vehicle for an enterprising chemist in September 1848.  His ads appeared throughout the Northeast saying:

Messrs. Gabaudan & Condie, Druggists, No. 166 Eighth Avenue, state that this past summer they sold Mr. Lawrence, a Police Officer, six bottles of Dr. Roger's Liverwort and Tar.  His wife afterwards called upon them, and said that her husband had been, for some time time, lying very low with Consumption, and that the Physician and their friends had despaired of his recovery; but by the use of the above six bottles, he was restored to perfect health.  She says she has no doubt but that it was the above Medicine alone which cured him.

James Condie was born in Perthshire, Scotland.  Both he and his wife, the former Sarah Ellen Harrison, were born in 1820.  In addition to running the drugstore, he volunteered as a "laddie" at Laurel Hose Company, No. 30 on West 27th Street.  Five children would be born in the Eighth Avenue house--Sarah Ellen in 1849, Mary Catherine in 1854, Ellen Condie two years later, Samuel Harrison in 1859, and Ella Grace in 1862.

As was common, the Condies rented a room in their home.  In 1851 Jane E. Percy lived here.  She was a teacher in Colored Primary School No. 3 on West 15th Street.  The following year Underwood Montgomery rented the room.  He was a mechanist and a sexton of the West Twenty-Third Street Presbyterian Church.  Montgomery would remain with the Condies at least through 1856.

James and Sarah Ellen would suffer grief while living here.  On December 7, 1857, little Ellen died 21 days after her first birthday.  And Samuel Harrison Condie died at the age of one year and 11 months on February 2, 1861.  The miniature caskets of both children sat in the parlor until their funerals.

In 1866, Condie sold the building and the business to Robert Blackburn.  He commuted from his home in New Jersey while James Whittet, who apparently worked for Blackburn, occupied the upper portion of 166 Eighth Avenue.  Born in 1833, Whittet and his wife, Catherine Loehmert, had four children.  The Whittets' residency would be rather short-lived and by 1864 David J. Hughes, a policeman, lived here.  He was followed by Thomas Ormiston, a native of Skirling, Peebleshire, Scotland, who died in the house at the age of 57 on August 27, 1866.

Beginning about 1873, the Webster family lived above the drugstore.  William Webster was a carpenter and Charles ran a liquor store or saloon next door at 168 Eighth Avenue.  William changed profession and in 1876 was listed as a policeman.

That year Robert Blackburn and two other druggists fell victim to con artist James Nagle.  On April 21, 1876, the New York Herald said, "His trick is an old one."  Nagle would ask for five cents worth of salts and give the druggist a five dollar bill.  "When the change was given he claimed that it was $1 short and demanded $1 extra," explained the article.  Police caught up with Nagle and charged him "of swindling."

Like the Condies had done, the Websters took in a roomer.  Mary Scott House moved in with the family in November 1877.  Described by the New York Evening Express as belonging "to one of the best families in the State," Mary House was in desperate straits.  A few weeks earlier, on October 23, she had married Elijah S. House ("a member of an aristocratic family in Troy," according to the New York Evening Express).  The newlyweds checked into the New York Hotel.  The newspaper reported that House, "left the hotel on November 1st, saying he was going to get some money, and did not return.  Four or five days after she received a letter from him telling her to go back among her friends, and she then found he had abandoned her."

The Websters may have given Mary House a room out of sympathy.  The New York Evening Express said, "All the money [House] gave her since her marriage was fifty cents."  She complained to the police, who finally found and arrested Elijah S. House, who was living with Emma Scott at 186 Thompson Street.

House defended his actions saying, in part, that Mary had told him "she was worth money in her own right," but after their marriage he discovered she was "deeply in debt and wanted him to pay her debts."  Additionally, "her temper became so irritable that he could not live with her."  Surprisingly, Justice Bixby discharged House because he had lost his job and could not support his wife.  He told Mary, "that she could have her husband rearrested whenever she was able to prove he was earning any money."

In February 1878, Robert Blackburn had a more serious concern than swindling to worry about.  His clerk, Edward Wall, filled a prescription for Sophia Brown.  The 20-year-old was pregnant at the time.  Dr. Bremen later said he prescribed ten pills that contained, in total, "one-fifth of a grain of Hyoscyamus."  (Hyoscyamus is a toxic plant used in small doses to treat nervous disorders or problems with sleeping.)  Instead, Wall put one-fifth of a grain of the poisonous ingredient into each pill--ten times the prescribed amount.

Sophia Brown took one of the pills at 7:00 on the evening of February 12 and died within an hour.  Dr. Bremen went to the Blackburn drugstore and discovered Wall's mistake.  Rather astonishingly, on February 19 a coroner's jury decided that Robert Blackburn and Edward Wall were innocent of malpractice.  The New York Times reported that the jury felt that Sophia Brown died "from a miscarriage, and that they knew not whether it had been brought about in an artificial or natural manner."

John Alexander Whittet had lived above the store in 1866 as a five-year-old while his father, James Whittet, worked in the Blackburn pharmacy.  In 1882, now a young man, he purchased the drugstore.  He had inherited $10,000 from his father's estate the previous year.  (The figure would translate to a considerable $325,000 in 2026.)  Whittet was originally successful, but a failed romance led to his downfall.

Four years later, on December 15, 1886, The New York Times reported, "He was paying attentions to a young lady living in Carlton-avenue, Brooklyn, but their engagement was broken off."  According to relatives, Whittet went on a drunken, year-long spree.  The New York Times said, "He did a good business until he contracted habits of intemperance."  Under pressure from relatives, he agreed to "become an inmate of the Christian Home for Intemperate men, but he withdrew his consent." 

In order to "save him from complete destruction," as worded by the newspaper, "his relatives interposed."  On December 14, 1886, police arrested John Alexander Whittet from behind the counter of his drugstore.  His grandmother, Margaret Ormiston, had "charged him with being an habitual drunkard," said the article.

Daniel R. Woollett, a printer, obtained the property shortly afterward.  Born in London in July 1838, he came to America in 1851.  An employer of the printing firm Styles & Cash, Wollett was an active member of the Masonic Tabernacle Lodge No. 598.  He and his family moved into the upper floors of 166 Eighth Avenue.  

At the same time, the Van Valkenburgh & Rickey drugstore took over the ground floor space.  That partnership dissolved in 1889 and August Weber took over the shop for his grocery business.  He moved in with the Wollett family.

Weber was chosen as a jury member in 1899 in one of New York City's most famous murder cases.  Roland Burnham Molineux attempted to eliminate a romantic rival, Harry Seymour Cornish, by poisoning a bottle of Emerson's Bromo-Seltzer with cyanide of mercury.  Instead, Cornish's cousin, Katherine Adams, took the medicine for a headache.  She died within a few minutes.  (The court case resulted in a landmark ruling that restricted prosecutors from presenting evidence of previous crimes.)

August Weber's grocery store was pointed out by The Evening Post in July 1902 as one of the outlets within Manhattan deemed by Dr. R. A. Witthaus of Cornell University Medical College as having, "pure, wholesome, and reliable food products."

Daniel R. Woollett died on October 30, 1904 at the age of 66.  His funeral was held in the parlor of 166 Eighth Avenue two days later.

The former Weber grocery store space was leased to Daniel Reeves, Inc. in April 1915.  The name was familiar to New Yorkers and this store would be one of hundreds of Daniel Reeves groceries throughout the New York City area.

Renting a room here in 1917 was Irish-born Margaret T. J. Curley, who worked as a stenographer.  The fiery-tempered woman attended what the New-York Tribune described as "a soapbox meeting of the Friends of Irish Freedom" at Broadway and 35th Street on August 29 that year.  What started as a peaceful protest ended in anything but that.  The New-York Tribune began an article saying, "Heads were broken, women trampled and eight persons arrested last night in two riots which followed the attempts of the police to disperse a crowd of three thousand persons."

Enraged after three orators were hauled off the platform by police only minutes after starting speaking, Margaret T. J. Curley jumped into action.  The New-York Tribune reported, "A woman, madly shrieking that she was a suffragette, leaped to the platform, tore off her hat and began waving the [Irish] flag."  The article said, "Miss Curley was arrested."

The Daniel Reeves grocery store was the scene of an armed robbery on March 26, 1927.  The New York Times reported that two armed men, "forced the manager, John Cleary and a woman customer, to the rear, rifled the till of $300 and escaped in a waiting automobile."

In 1929, an Art Deco storefront composed of Vitreous enamel panels was installed.  By 1938, Freddy's Food Market had supplanted Daniel Reeves in the store.  With Prohibition repealed, in 1938 the grocery obtained a license to sell beer and wine.  

In 1941, the Greek Revival entrance, the six-over-six windows and the modest cornice were intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The second half of the 20th century saw a decline in the Eighth Avenue neighborhood.  But a renaissance at the turn of the century saw trendy shops and restaurants filling the storefronts.  La Chinita Linda, a Cuban-Chinese restaurant, occupied the ground floor of 166 Eighth Avenue.  Richard Laermer's 2002 Native's Guide to New York said it "has fab black beans."

Distressingly mutilated today, only the Flemish bond brickwork and now-painted brownstone lintels and sills of 166 Eighth Avenue survive to testify of the building's venerable history.

photographs by the author

The John Schermerhorn Bussing House - 4 East 12th Street

 

The son of Abraham and Hester Kingsland Bussing, John Schermerhorn Bussing was born on Cortlandt Street on October 15, 1802.  His two maternal aunts had married into the prominent Schermerhorn family, prompting his middle name.  Bussing formed a dry goods business, E. & J. Bussing, with his brother, Edmund.  Following Edmund's death 26 years later, John changed course, founding the iron and nail firm, John S. Bussing & Company.  He married Agnes Ann Speir in 1825 and the couple had a son, Robert Speir, who was born in 1826.  Agnes died in 1831.

Two years later, John married Ann Van Nest in her parent's home.  The couple, with young Robert, moved into the Van Nest home, once the summer mansion of Sir Peter Warren.  A son, Abraham VanNest Bussing was born in 1834 and John Stuyvesant Bussing arrived on September 21, 1838.  Sadly, Abraham died at the age of five in 1838.

Around 1845 John S. Bussing and Peter R. Bonnet, most likely close acquaintances, began construction of matching brownstone-faced residence at 154 and 156 Twelfth Street, respectively.  (The addresses would be altered to 4 and 6 East 12th Street in 1855.)  Twenty-five-feet wide and four stories tall above English basements, they held their own with the mansions rising on Fifth Avenue just steps away.  Next to the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, the entrance sat within a striking portico, its fluted columns capped with complex palm leaf capitals.

John Schermerhorn Bussing, Genealogies of the State of New York, 1915 (copyright expired)

In 1848, not long after moving into their mansion, the Bussings' only daughter, Mary, was born.

John Bussing was active in the public schools.  As early as 1850, he held the position of Chairman of Section No. 1 in the public and primary school system.  

John Schermerhorn Bussing died in the East 12th Street house on June 9, 1864 at the age of 62.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

Robert Speir Bussing had joined his father's business as a young man.  He married Mary Kingsland on January 8, 1850 and at the time of his father's death the couple was living in Brooklyn.  

John Stuyvesant Bussing had served in the Civil War.  By now he was a partner in the banking and brokerage firm Gelston & Bussing and still lived with his mother and sister at 4 East 12th Street.

John Stuyvesant Bussing, Genealogies of the State of New York, 1915 (copyright expired)

John married Kate Breath in 1873.  In what must have been unspeakable emotional anguish for John, Kate died in childbirth the following year, as did the couple's twin daughters, Kate and Anne.  He married Emily Morton Jenkins on October 31, 1882.  The couple lived with Ann and Mary at 4 East 12th Street.

It was acceptable for even well-to-do and socially prominent families to take in a boarder and in 1873 Henry C. Overin, the proprietor of the Phoenix Stables on West 46th Street, lived with the family.  He was separated from his wife, Mary, whom he married in 1865.  The New York Times explained that for a few years, "they lived unhappily."  Overin lived here through 1880, and it would not be until his death in 1898 that his name appeared in newspapers.  When both Mrs. Mary E. Overin and a decidedly younger Mrs. Caroline Overin laid claim to Henry's estate and business, the wealthy stable owner's duel life came to light.

In the meantime, John Bussing was highly involved with church and civic activities.  For decades he was a member of the consistory of the College Reformed Church.  He would, additionally, become one of the board of managers of the Young Men's Christian Association and of the Young Women's Christian Association.  In 1877, he was among a group of gentlemen who hoped to reform alcoholics.  On May 27, The New York Times reported that the men "have issued an appeal for assistance to enable them to establish a home for the reformation of drunkards."

Mary, who would never marry, was the victim of a pickpocket on March 2, 1882.  The New York Times reported that as she "was looking at the window of a Broadway store," James Harvey "rifled the sack pocket" of Mary Bussing.  The article said, "The only plunder he secured, was a card-case containing some cards and a few postage stamps."

Both Mary and Anne were active in philanthropic and charitable causes.  Anne's father, Abraham Van Nest, had been a trustee of Rutgers College and Van Nest Hall there was named in his honor.  In 1898, Anne "built a stone porch to Van Nest Hall and also refitted the eastern portion of the second story into a handsome hall for the use of the students in elocution," reported the New-York Tribune.  She was a generous benefactor of the Theological Seminary in New Brunswick and established the Bussing Prize there.

Mary Bussing was a founder of the Christmas Letter Mission.  The group endeavored to brighten the holidays of orphans, the indigent, prisoners, and hospitalized patients.  She explained in a letter to the editor of the New-York Tribune on December 15, 1887, "these beautiful letters, with a bright card inclosed [sic], are sent as a surprise on Christmas morning to the suffering ones."  She noted, "Twenty-five cents will send six of these sunbeams into lonely hearts."

John and Kate Bussing moved to 26 East 10th Street in 1886.  Now only Ann and Mary remained in the East 12th Street house with their staff of servants.  After a "severe attack of pneumonia," as reported by the New-York Tribune, Ann Van Nest Bussing died in the mansion at the age of 93 on January 8, 1905.

In 1918, Mary Bussing sold the house that her parents had built seven decades earlier and the only home she had ever known.  On February 23, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported, "Samuel Marcus...contemplates altering the 4-story brick and stone dwelling at 4 East 12th st., into studios and apartments."  The cost of the renovations, said the article, would be $15,000, or about $312,000 in 2026.  Plans filed by architects Jonathan B. Snook Sons included "remove stoop and [install] plumbing."

The renovations, completed in 1920, resulted in bachelor apartments.  The term did not mean that tenants were not restricted to men, but that the apartments did not have kitchens.  

Among the initial residents were Joseph P. Dugan, an engineer, and English-born D. Frank Gordon.  On October 25, 1920, the two men went uptown to join a rally by gubernatorial candidate Dudley Field Malone.  Professor Walter Edgerton Holloway first addressed the crowd and things began getting tense when, as described by The New York Times, the speaker "harangued a crowd of 5,000 Irish sympathizers near the Maine Monument."  Joseph Dugan remarked to Gordon, "Edgerton is a poor speaker, I wish Malone would hurry up and talk."

The New York Times said that the "casual remark to a friend was misinterpreted."  The Evening World reported that an Irishman in the crowd instead heard, "to the devil with Lord Mayor MacSwiney."  (MacSwiney was the former Lord Mayor of Cork.)  The article said, "An Irishman punched Gordon and a yell went up, 'He cursed MacSwiney!'"  The New York Times reported that Dugan and Gordon were beaten and Dugan "nearly lost his life at the hands of a mob."  Happily, police officers were on hand to rescue them.

In 1927, the newly-formed Institute of World Unity moved into the building, presumably in the basement level.  An educational and cultural organization, its goal was to promote racial tolerance and international peace.  By 1930, it also published World Unity Magazine from the address.

The institute was followed by The Meeting Place, Inc. around 1931.  A renovation by architects Beineix & Snyder in 1934 better accommodated the organization.  The Meeting Place now occupied the basement and first floors, and the upper floors held apartments.

The stoop and portico of 6 East 12th Street was originally a match to the one removed from No. 4 in 1918.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Among the first tenants in the renovated apartments was artist Reginald Marsh, who was recently divorced.  He moved into the building in February 1933.  Born in Paris in 1898, Marsh would become noted for his depictions of New York City life, like unemployed men on the Bowery and lively Coney Island boardwalk scenes.

In January 1934, Marsh married painter Felicia Meyer and, according to Ellen Wiley Todd in her New Woman Revised, the couple left 4 East 12th Street that month.  Apparently Marsh retained his studio here, however, because when he won a cash prize in the 122th annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design in 1937, his address was still listed at 4 East 12th Street.

Another renovation, completed in 1952, resulted in a "business office" in the basement and apartments on the upper floors.  Among those living and working here in the 1960s were composer, librettist and lyricist Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, and painter and printmaker Betty Waldo Parish.  Later television and documentary producer David E. J. Berger and his collaborator and wife Holly Maxson lived and worked here.

Despite the loss of the stoop and parlor entry, 4 East 12th Street survives remarkably intact above the basement level.  Today, the building, with its remarkable history, holds eight apartments.

photographs by the author

The 1837 Jonas Wood House - 285 East Third Street

photograph by Carole Teller

 

In 1837, just 26 years after the Commissioners' Plan laid out on paper the streets that would dissect lands owned by Nicholas and Elizabeth Fish, ship carver Charles Dodge erected a row of six brick-faced homes on the north side of the newly opened Third Street between Avenues C and D.  Three stories tall and 22-feet-wide above English basements, the houses reflected the emerging Greek Revival style.  The builder arranged them as three mirror-image pairs that shared a stoop divided by a wing wall and iron railing.  The side-by-side doorways were framed by brownstone pilasters that upheld a single-layered entablature and molded cornice.

Attorney Jonas Wood first occupied 285 Third Street (the "East" in the address would be added in the early 1860s).  Highly involved in local politics, he had run for assemblyman in 1833.   He was, as well, a "trustee of the funds" of the Eight Ward Mutual Assurance Association.

The house saw a succession of residents through the 1840s and 1850s.  Charles H. Hillard was listed here in 1845; Robert I. Furney, a teacher in Public School No. 13 on Madison Street in 1847; and engineer Charles Garrison in 1850 and '51.

In 1852 Frances M. Murray and her daughters moved in, almost assuredly leasing the house.  Born in 1797, she was the widow of Thomas Murray.  

The two eldest daughters, Frances J. and Anna Murray, worked in Public School No. 22 on the corner of Stanton and Sheriff Streets in 1852.  Francis was the principal of the Girls' Department and Anna was a teacher.  Their positions were reflected in the women's salaries.  Francis earned $600 a year, and Anna $200.  (The figures would translate to $23,000 and $7,680 in 2026.)  Their younger sister, Louisa, would also become a teacher and in 1858 she worked at P. S. No. 15 on Fifth Street. 

Like many middle-class widows, Frances M. Murray took in boarders.  Living here that first year were Frederick Bevin, a real estate agent, and seaman David Hall.

Frances M. Murray moved to 817 East 4th Street in 1864.  She died there on March 8, 1869.

No. 285 East 3rd Street continued to house boarders.  Living here in 1864 were William Raise; Jacob Basch, a turner (the operator of a lathe to make items like spindles); and cigarmaker Samuel Goldberg.  Nicholas Baum, a smith, occupied the smaller house in the rear yard.

Although William Raise still listed his address at 285 Third Street that year, he was off fighting with the Union Army.  On July 15, 1864, he and 127 other Union guards were transporting 833 Confederate prisoners of war from Point Lookout, Maryland to Elmira, New New York on a 17-car train pulled by a wood-burning steam locomotive.

At around 2:45 p.m. the train collided head-on with a coal train at Shohola Township, Pennsylvania, about 19 miles from Port Jervis, New York.  At least 51 Confederal soldiers and 17 Union guards were killed instantly or within a day after.  The next day, the Troy, New York Daily Whig reported that among those who were injured, but not killed, at "Shin Hollow," was William Raise.

The Levy Hirsch family first occupied 285 East 3rd Street around 1867.  A cigarmaker, his family also took in boarders.  In 1868 tailor Michael Durmann occupied the rear house; and Simon Falk and Andrew Lynch lived with the Hirsches.  Simon Falk listed his profession as "segars," suggesting that he worked for Hirsch; and Lynch was a carpenter.

Jacob Kettner, who purchased 285 East 3rd Street around 1872, most likely knew Levy Hirsch.  He, too, operated a cigarmaking business.  Joseph R. Kettner worked for his father.  Boarding with the family in 1873 were fruit dealer Daniel M. Vineberg, and Maximilian Kutz, a real estate agent.

In 1876 George Davis, a police officer, boarded here and he would remain through 1879.  It was possibly his influence that prompted Joseph Kettner to leave his father's cigar business and apply to the Police Department.  In 1879, he was accepted as a patrolman earning $1,000 a year (about $33,000 today).

In March 1900, the Kettner family leased 285 East 3rd Street to Jacob and Rosa Lewis.  Jacob, who was in the clothing business, dabbled in real estate.  On May 19, 1905, for instance, The New York Times reported that he was making $5,000 in alterations to a "five-story brick tenement" at 218 East 7th Street; and in September 1909 he updated two "four-story brick tenements" on Avenue A.

The Kettner family sold the house to Abraham Heiler around 1909.  He continued to lease it to the Lewis family.  In June 1910, Heiler modernized the house by adding indoor plumbing and, importantly, "toilets."  The renovations cost him the equivalent of $52,400 today.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

After Morris Beck purchased 285 East 3rd Street in October 1921, it became a rooming house.  The Depression years saw mostly German families living here.  Among the residents in 1932, for instance, were the Waldstreichers, who operated a grocery store at 256 East 3rd Street, and Dr. Leo Rosenberg.

The third quarter of the 20th century started badly for 285 East Third Street.  When a two-alarm fire broke out in June 1972, The New York Times described it as being vacant.

But then, as early as 1984, I. Reed Books operated from the house.  And by the mid-1990s, Steven Cannon's "Gathering of the Tribes" was here.  It included the Tribes Gallery and space for emerging artists to network, trade ideas, and expose their works.

On January 5, 2001, in reporting on its latest exhibition, The New York Times journalist Holland Cotter described the Tribes Gallery, saying in part:

Tribe's latest offering has ambitions as big as the venue is small.  Organized by Christine Wang, it squeezes inself into three rooms, climbing up walls and spilling from shelves.  Three dozen or so international artists, several well known, jostle for attention.

On May 23, 2012, Stephen Rex Brown, writing in The New York Times, began an article saying, "Yesterday the founder of the art space at 285 East Third Street, Steve Cannon, was served with a formal '10-day notice of termination' for 'continued use of the premises as an office and art gallery, which is contracted to the lawful usage permitted by the certificate of occupancy for the building."

A year earlier, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation had begun a push to have 285 and 287 East 3rd Street designated individual landmarks.  It cited the importance of No. 285 in Black History (because of its connection with Steve Cannon and the Gathering of the Tribes), and the significance of both buildings as being "highly intact Greek Revival" examples.

photograph by Carole Teller

The last two survivors of Charles Dodge's 1837 row, the pair has managed to escape the brutalization or demolition of similar relics in the East Village.  Neither has landmark protection at this writing.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post