J. M. Felson's 1929 218 West 10th Street

image via streeteasy.com

Abraham Schwartz was a builder and real estate developer, head of the A. M. Schwartz Building & Construction Company.  On May 2, 1928, he purchased three three-story apartment buildings at 340 through 344 Bleecker Street and the abutting, five-story apartment house on the southwest corner of West 10th Street.  The next day, The New York Times announced that the old structures, "will be razed and replaced by a modern six-story elevator apartment building containing electric refrigeration and other modern improvements."

Schwartz commissioned the Russian-born architect Jacob M. Felson to design the building.  Completed the following year, the residential entrance was placed at the western end of the West 10th Street side.  The four stores along Bleecker Street were designed with deep arcade show windows that enabled the proprietors to create large displays.  (The corner store was double the size of the other three.)

Completed in 1929 at a cost of $238,700 (about $4.73 million in 2026), Felson's sleek, tripartite 1920s take on the Medieval Revival style included an arched corbel table below the fifth floor cornice, and stepped Tudor-inspired gables with blank shields atop the parapet.  Above the residential entrance Felson placed a carved Renaissance-inspired panel.

Abe Schwartz could not have predicted that the Stock Market would crash the year his building opened.  In August 1931, he lost the property in foreclosure.

A woman who lived here at the time (whose name was not disclosed in newspaper articles) was having an affair with a married Brooklyn man, Valentine C. Bauman.  In the meantime, Ruth C. Bauman was doing some private investigating on her own and tracked down her wandering husband to Manhattan and 218 West 10th Street.  On the evening of November 4, 1931, Ruth and "several of her friends," according to The Brooklyn Standard Union, barged into the apartment.  

Ruth told a judge on January 8, 1932, "There he was sitting on the side of the bed in two-piece underwear talking to a woman in [a] flesh-colored negligee."  According to Ruth Bauman, her husband remarked, "Here I am."  The article said that Ruth was "a free woman today."

The arcade storefronts survived as late as 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Jane Carabine and Margaret Dusseau shared an apartment here as early as 1932.  Margaret came home early on the night of February 26, 1933, to discover her 30-year-old roommate dead.  The New York Times reported, "Gas was escaping from a jet of the kitchen range."  Police called Jane's death accidental.

As early as 1963, Aldo's Italian restaurant occupied the southern-most commercial space.  It was replaced by Boomer's soul food and jazz restaurant around 1972.  That year New York Magazine called it "a casual Village place where spareribs and black-eyed peas are served up with great sounds by the likes of Ray Bryant, Bobby Timmons and Cedar Watson."

The De Santis-Jensen "semi-antiques shop," as described by The New York Times on August 21, 1965, filled the corner space.  Owned by Stuart Jenson and Anthony de Santis, the shop appealed to "the special kind of person who appreciates kookiness as much as we do," according to Jensen.  He told The Times, "Barbra Streisand hasn't been in here, but Tony Perkins has, and so have Eli Wallach, Leonard Bernstein and Anne Bancroft."

photo by The New York Times photographer Bill Allen, August 21, 1965

Living here by 1987 was Glenn R. Purdy, an editor for Travel Agent magazine.  On July 23 that year, Purdy did not arrive at work.  When no one could reach him, senior editor Joe Murphy went to his apartment.  Getting no response from inside, Murphy walked over to the nearby Sixth Precinct station house.

Officers returned with Murphy and entered the apartment.  "They found Mr. Purdy's body on the living room couch," reported The New York Times.  According to one of the officers, the 57-year-old had been stabbed in the back and his pockets had been "ripped apart."  Because there was no sign of forced entry, officials thought Purdy knew his killer.  A bloody kitchen knife was recovered in the apartment.

The building's most celebrated tenant was playwright, librettist and screenwriter Terrence McNally, who lived here with his life partner (and, later, husband), Broadway producer and former civil rights attorney Tom Kirdahy.

Born on November 3, 1938, McNally graduated from Columbia University in 1960.  The next year, he was hired by novelist John Steinbeck and his wife to tutor their two teenaged sons while they traveled.  (McNally was already in a relationship with playwright Edward Albee.)

His first full-length play, This Side of the Door, was produced in 1962, and his Broadway debut came in 1965 when he was just 26 years old.  He would go on to write hits like Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and The Ritz.

Terrance McNally posed in front of the marquee of his first Broadway musical, The Rink, in 1984.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In reviewing his Mothers and Sons in the Observer on March 26, 2014, Rex Reed called the play "a masterpiece," and McNally, "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced."  He also wrote the books for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.  

McNally addressed gay sexuality and the AIDS crisis.  Writing in The New York Times on March 24, 2020, Jesse Green and Neil Genzlinger said, "His gay stories never came across as a narrowing of theater's human focus but as an expansion of it, and by inviting everyone into them he helped solidify the social change he was describing."

McNally and Kirdahy were still living at 218 West 10th Street when the four-time Tony Award-winning playwright died in Sarasota, Florida on March 24, 2020 at the age of 81.

photo via streeteasy.com

For decades the southern space on Bleecker Street was home to Manatus, a diner-type restaurant, while the Village Apothecary on the corner enjoyed equal longevity.  They were replaced by the Saint Theo's restaurant and a Pdpaola jewelry store, respectively.

J. M. Felson's 1942 223 East 61st Street

image via compass.com

Born in Russia in 1886, Jacob M. Felson received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  At the time, the Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church, organized during the Civil War, worshipped in the distinctive Victorian Gothic building it had erected in the 1870s.  

When this photograph was taken in 1941, the church's days were numbered.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church merged with Christ Church Methodist at 60th Street and Park Avenue in 1933.  The following year, the congregation of the French Episcopal Eglise du Saint-Espirit moved into the church.  Just over a decade later, on October 7, 1941, The New York Sun reported that the Valcourt Realty Corporation had purchased the building.  "A six-story apartment house to contain forty-nine suites and 124 rooms and estimated to cost $200,000 will be erected on the site," said the article.  (The construction cost would translate to about $4 million in 2025.)

Throughout the Depression years, J. M. Felson had kept busy designing Art Deco and Art Moderne-style apartment buildings.  His design for 223 East 61st Street would be different--a 1940s take on Georgian architecture.  While Felson's fenestration--casements and tripartite windows--was distinctly modern, he gave the red brick facade details inspired from early American precedents.

The arched, double-doored entrance sat within a Georgian frame of fluted Doric columns, topped with an elegant swan's head pediment and stylized pineapple.  The end windows wore splayed brick lintels with stone keystones.  The building was crowned by a brick pediment decorated by a central shield flanked by swags.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

The apartments, eight per floor, became home to middle- and upper-middle class tenants.  Among the initial residents were Faith B. LeLacheur and Clarissa Cooper.  A graduate of Wellesley College, Faith was a nurse.  Clarissa was a teacher of French and a translator of French literary works.  She received her master and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.  In the 1920s she obtained her pilot license and was an award-winning driver for the American Women's Voluntary Service during World War II.  The couple decorated their apartment, according to The New York Times later, with an "extensive array of antiques."

Other early residents were journalist Robert Simpson and his wife, the former Luz Rudolph.  Born in 1896, Simpson was the son of a journalist.  Like his father, Robert worked for newspapers in Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia before relocating to New York and joining The Evening World.

photograph by Lowell Cochran

In 1929, Simpson joined The New York Times on the city desk.  He would eventually focus on scientific issues, especially plant genetics and world problems.  While working at The Times, he contributed many articles to other popular and trade periodicals, like his scathing article for The Saturday Review that rebutted claims of Soviet geneticist, T. D. Lysenko.

Simpson left The New York Times in 1959 and joined the public relations firm of Thomas J. Deegan Company.  He was public relations director for the Preakness at Pimlico Race Track in 1962, and was publicity consultant for Pan American Airways.

Typical of the Simpsons' neighbors in the building were Russell P. Kantor and his wife, the former Mabel Chamberlain.  Kantor was president of Victor Gloves, Inc. and grand director of ceremonies of the Masonic Order's Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Clarissa Burnham and Faith B. LeLacheur still occupied their apartment in 1979.  Clarissa died on June 29 that year at the age of 84.

Vivian Williams cleaned the couple's apartment once a week.  Three months after Clarissa's death, on October 17, 1979, Williams entered and immediately noticed a grandfather clock knocked to the floor in the entry hall.  She discovered Faith LeLacheur's body in the bedroom.  The 81-year-old had been murdered by "multiple stab wounds," according to police, who would say only, "that she had 'possibly' been raped," reported The New York Times.  The apartment had not been ransacked and, apparently, not robbed.  There were indications, however, that the elderly woman had valiantly struggled with her attacker.

There are still eight apartments per floor and, outwardly, little has changed to J. M. Felson's reserved design.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post.

The 1926 The Richmond - 147-153 West 79th Street

 

In 1925, the Felco Realty Corp. demolished three high-stooped brownstone houses to make way for a modern apartment building.  Designed by J. M. Felson, The Richmond was completed the following year at a cost of $700,000--just over $12 million in 2025.  A 1920s take on Spanish Renaissance architecture, its somber, dark brown brick facade was enlightened with brilliantly colored terra cotta elements.

The cream-colored details of the entrance sat upon an orange background.  In place of capitals, the Renaissance-inspired pilasters terminated in shields held by nude youths.  Above the doorway was an elaborate heraldic design, and three urns perched upon the cornice.

photograph by Eden, Janine and Jim (cropped)

A faux balcony at the third floor echoed the entrance pilasters.  Intricate filigree screens fronted heraldic shields over each window, above which were terra cotta knights flanked by children's faces.  Rondels of bas relief Renaissance busts floated above the central windows of the fourth floor.  A second faux balcony, this one in the form of an elaborate arcade, appeared at the 13th floor.  A modest terra cotta cornice originally crowned the 15-floor design.

An advertisement boasted that the apartments came with refrigerators rather than ice boxes.  "Unusual apartments in 'The Richmond.'  Large, convertible 4-room apartments and a Special Doctor's Apartment.  Mechanical refrigeration.  Moderate rents."

It appears that several of the early residents were young couples.  On December 17, 1926, for instance The American Hebrew reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Jerome M. Ahrens, upon their return from a Californian wedding trip, will reside at 147 West Seventy-ninth Street, New York.  The bride was the former Ethel Baer."  Another young couple were David and Doris Loeb, who lived on the sixth floor.  

David Loeb was a bond salesman.  When he returned to the apartment early in the morning of May 8, 1931, Doris was not there.  The Brooklyn Eagle reported, "Mrs. Doris Loeb, 30...was killed early this morning when she either fell or jumped from the dining room window...to a rear courtyard."  The Evening Post said, "Detectives said there was no sign of a struggle and Mrs. Loeb probably had been in bed prior to her fall."  (Why Doris plunged from the dining room if she had presumably been in bed was not addressed.)  David Loeb declared, "his wife was in good health, and could ascribe no reason for her death," added The Evening Post.

It may have been the difficulties of the Depression years that prompted a few residents of The Richmond to go astray.  On October 11, 1933, the Yonkers Herald Statesman reported that four men, including 38-year-old John B. Wagner, had pleaded guilty "to charges of bookmaking."  Wagner and his cronies were dealt leniently by Judge Charles W. Boote.  The article said, "They were placed on probation for indefinite periods."

Another resident would be in trouble three years later.  On February 4, 1936, the Brooklyn Eagle reported that 36-year-old Adrien Marcus and a co-conspirator had been charged "with attempting to extort $1,000 from Otto Bresse of 533 West End Ave., Manhattan, by posing as police officers."

An impressive resident was Fanny Holtzmann, who briefly moved into her parents' apartment here in the fall of 1934.  Fanny received her law degree from Fordham University in 1922, and focused on clients involved in the theater, eventually becoming the most influential attorney in the industry.  

On October 3, 1934, the Jewish Daily Bulletin reported, "Fanny Holtzmann is back.  Back from London, scene of one of the greatest and most dramatic legal triumphs--her victory over Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the suit of Princess Youssoupoff for libel in their production of 'Rasputin and the Empress.'"  Holtzmann had won a cash settlement "that has been estimated variously at from a quarter to three-quarters of a million dollars" for the princess, said the article.

Fanny Holtzmann.  from the collection of Fordham Law School

Holtzmann had represented actress Ina Claire in her divorce from stage star John Gilbert in 1931, and had negotiated the contracts of the likes of Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw.  Fanny's father, Henry Holtzman, had been an influential Brooklyn attorney.  The Jewish Daily Bulletin remarked, "Of late years, however, her father has resided in Manhattan at 147 West Seventy-ninth street, which address is also the home of Broadway and Hollywood's favorite Portia."

The "Portia" referred to in the article was assuredly well-acquainted with Fanny Holtzmann.  Actress Marion Cunnar Evensen first played the role of Portia in Julius Caesar in 1917.  In 1934, the year of the article, Evensen met actress and director Eva Le Gallienne.  The couple would remain life partners until Evensen's death in 1971.

Another theatrical resident was writer and producer Reginald Rose.  He and his wife, the former Barbara Langbart, were married in 1943.  While living here, he wrote Twelve Angry Men, which he initially sold as a television drama, in 1955.  It would be adapted for the screen in 1957.  In his 2021 Reginald Rose and the Journal of 12 Angry Men, Phil Rosenzweig mentioned, "In early 1955, Barbara Rose became pregnant with twins.  That spring, the family moved from their small apartment on 147 West Seventy-Ninth Street to a larger one at 151 West Eighty-Sixth Street."

Reginald Rose.  image via IMDb.com

Following the death in December 1964 of famed steamship designer Vladimir Yourkevitch, his widow, the former Olga Krestovsky Petrovsky, moved into The Richmond.  Vladimir Yourkevitch is best remembered today for his masterful Art Deco liner, the S. S. Normandie.  He and Olga had arrived in New York City in 1935 on that vessel's maiden voyage.

This 1935 postcard depicts the S. S. Normandie, which carried Olga and Vladimir Yourkevitch to New York.

Born 1891 to Russian officer and novelist Colonel Vsevolod Krestovsky, Olga was educated at the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg.  She earned Serbian and French decorations and the Russian Cross of St. George for her nursing work during World War I in Serbia, Cannes, and Moscow.  She and her first husband, Nicholas Petrovsky, fled to Serbia and then to France after the Russian Revolution.  Following her divorce, she married Yourkevitch in Paris.  Olga Yourkevitch died while living here on December 6, 1976 at the age of 85.

Among Yourkevitch's neighbors in The Richmond had been Dr. Herman Max Sternberg and his wife, the former Emmy Malles.  Born in Austria in 1901, Sternberg was "a member of a notable medical family," according to The New York Times.  "His father, Prof. Maximillian Sternberg, was a professor of medicine at [the University of] Vienna, and his uncle, Prof. Carl Sternberg, was a professor of pathology there," said the newspaper.  Not surprisingly, Herman Sternberg attended the University of Vienna, graduating in 1925.

Arriving in New York City in 1939, the orthopedic surgeon became associated with the Hospital of Joint Diseases, the Long Island College of Medicine, the Prospect Heights Hospital in Brooklyn, and Mount Sinai Hospital.

At some point after mid-century, the terra cotta cornice of The Richmond was removed.  Despite the loss and the unsympathetic treatment of facade repairs, the building's splashy Spanish Renaissance-style terra cotta decorations are show-stoppers.

photographs by the author

J. M. Felson's 1936 137 East 38th Street

 

Architect J. M. Felson kept busy throughout the Depression years designing, for the most part, apartment buildings.  They ranged from splashy Art Deco designs with colorful terra cotta panels to much more sedate versions of the style.  Among the latter examples was 137 East 38th Street, completed in 1936.  The 12-story-and-penthouse structure was faced in ruddy red brick.  Stone appeared only at the water table; the stoic, two-story entrance surround; and two three-floor frames at the eighth through tenth floors.  The slender panes and shallow transoms of the casement windows were important to Felsom's design.  A series of setbacks provided terraces to the eleventh through penthouse levels.

The setbacks and all-important casements can be seen in this 1941 photograph.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

There were nine apartments each on the second through tenth floors, seven on the eleventh and twelfth, and five on the penthouse level.  Among the initial residents were Chester and Beryl Halley Falkenhainer.  Falkenhainer had served in World War I as a Marine.  Now an insurance executive, he was earning $5,000 a year, according to Jacob L. Bapst and Ivan M. Tribe in their Beryl Halley, The Life and Follies of a Ziegfeld Beauty, 1897-1988.  The couple paid $125 per month for the apartment, or about $2,770 in 2024 terms.

Born in Bladen, Ohio in June 1897, Beryl Halley first appeared on Broadway in the musical comedy Tangerine in 1921.  Beginning in 1923, she was a member of Florenz Ziegfeld's famous Follies.  Halley essentially retired from the stage following her marriage to Falkenhainer on September 30, 1933.

Beryl Halley, International News, 1926

Franklin Benjamin and Esther Leeming Tuttle were also early residents.  They moved in following their wedding on June 14, 1940.  Like Chester Falkenhainer, Ben (he went by his middle name) Tuttle was an insurance executive and, like Beryl Halley, Esther Leeming had given up her stage career after marrying.  She had debuted on Broadway playing the part of a Mexican maid in The Petrified Forest with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart.

In her 2003 autobiography No Rocking Chair for Me, Esther (known to her friends as Faity) mentions that their 10th-floor, two-bedroom apartment, "had a great view looking south over the city."  She busied herself for the next few decades volunteering and raising three children.

Esther Leeming Tuttle's astounding career would happen long after moving from 137 East 38th Street.  Following Ben's death in 1968, she returned to acting.  "I thought I might as well try being a granny model," she told a reporter from the New York Post in 2005 (she was in her 90s at the time of the interview).  And, in addition to her many commercial roles, she was highly involved with the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, serving as its Board Chair from 1970 to 1977, overseeing its incorporation, and producing a series of horticulturally themed films.  She died on July 9, 2015 at the age of 104.

Resident August L. Janssen--who moved in with his wife, Alice, shortly after the building's completion--was familiar to many New Yorkers.  Described by The New York Times as "one of the best-known restaurateurs in the city," Janssen was born in Emden, Germany, in 1865.  He arrived in New York at the age of 20 and, while working for a caterer, saved enough to open the Hofbrau Haus restaurant in 1898 on Broadway at 30th Street.

The New York Sun later remarked, "such notables as Enrico Caruso, Victor Herbert and President[s] Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were among his regular patrons."  At one point Janssen had two branch Hofbrau Hauses, but the anti-German sentiment during World War I forced him to close them.  By 1928, he operated a restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut and five in Paris.  Janssen died in the Lenox Hill Hospital on November 16, 1939 at the age of 72.

A fascinating resident was Dr. Kristine Mann.  She graduated from Smith College in 1895 and she taught English at the University of Michigan, Vassar College and the Brearley School before turning her attention to medicine.  She studied at the Cornell University Medical College and earned her Doctor of Medicine in 1913.  Dr. Mann's focus was on the conditions of working women.

From 1914 to 1916, she headed an investigation into the physical condition of saleswomen in New York stores.  During World War I, she "represented the Ordnance Department in overseeing the health conditions of women working in munitions plants," according to The New York Times, and from 1920 to 1924, was director of the Health Center for Business and Industrial Women in New York City.  She told a reporter in 1921 in part:

Every woman, whether she expects to marry or not, should possess the feeling of self-reliance which comes with earning a salary.  The young wife who knows that, if necessary, she can resume her place in the business world, has a much greater chance of maintaining an equal part in her household than has a young wife who must rely absolutely on the support of someone else.

In 1925, Dr. Mann began studying with Swiss psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, returning to Switzerland every three years until 1938.  When Dr. Jung was in America in 1936, he gave a seminar at Dr. Mann's summer home in Maine.  She was still living at 137 East 38th Street when she died at the age of 72 on November 12, 1945.

Living here at the time was songwriter and author Dorothy M. R. Stewart.  Born in Australia, she immigrated to the United States in 1924 and became a citizen in 1938.  Her 1948 song Now Is the Hour, recorded by Bing Crosby, was a chart topper.  But she soon recognized a problem--royalties (or lack thereof) from jukeboxes.

In 1953 she testified before Congress, "When my Now is the Hour was a jukebox favorite, I first became aware that our copyright laws do not provide for compensation to writers for such an obviously commercial use of our works."  Pointing out that dramatic rights were accorded in 1856, and performing rights in 1897, she stressed, "the jukebox industry can well afford to pay a small charge to authors, else they would not spend so much money in putting fancy trappings on the machines that play our music."

Another successful immigrant resident was Albert van Sand, who was born in Denmark in 1881.  A graduate of the University of Copenhagen, he came to America at the age of 20.  He began his career as a dancer, associated with society dancer Vernon Castle.  Then, in 192o, he changed course, becoming editor of the Danish language newspaper Nordlyset (Northern Light).  Six years later he acquired the weekly.

Living here with his wife, the former Rose Delar, Sand helped organize the Free Danish Committee in New York City during World War II.  In appreciation, Denmark bestowed the King Christians Order of Liberation on him in 1947, and a year later he was awarded the Order of Danneborg by King Frederik IX.

The replacement of the casement windows greatly upsets J. M. Felson's restrained Art Deco design.  The building's somewhat unassuming outward appearance belies the often compelling stories that have played out inside.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

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J. M. Felson's 1937 161 East 88th Street

Although the country was mired in the Great Depression, architect J. M. Felson was busy designing apartment houses in New York City in the 1930s, sometimes acting as his own developer.  In 1936, he was hired by York Enterprises to design a six-story structure at 159 through 163 East 88th Street.  Completed the following year, the Art Deco, six-story building was faced in beige brick.  Unlike Felson's 1931 40 West 86th Street, which was decorated with brilliantly colored terra cotta panels, 16 East 88th Street depended almost entirely on brick.

Stone appeared only at the reeded entrance, which was capped by a waterfall-like panel.  Felson accentuated the verticality of the relatively short building by laying the bricks within the spandrels between floors on their ends.  The fire escapes were part of the design, their curved corners and chevron motifs melding with the Art Deco architecture.  Felson reserved the drama for the top floor, where Aztec inspired panels and a stair-stepping parapet stole the show.

There were seven apartments per floor, ranging from one-and-a-half to four rooms with either one or two baths.  A 1937 advertisement in The New York Sun boasted, "modern elevator apartments; dropped living rooms, dining alcoves, open galleries, concealed radiation, etc."  Rents started at $55--or about $1,140 by 2024 terms.

from Columbia University's Real Estate Brochure Collection

Among the initial residents was the George William Knight family.  Knight's father, Louis Aston Knight (who went professional by his middle name), was a recognized landscape artist.  When his parents and sister, Diane, returned to America on the Vulcania on November 26, 1937, they "went to the home of a son, George W. Knight, at 161 East Eighty-eighth street," reported The New York Sun.

Aston Knight had been busy abroad, completing about 20 paintings in Normandy.  He told the press, "I have no definite plans.  We shall spend the Christmas holidays in Rochester and go on a cruise at Eastertime, probably to the West Indies, but just where will depend on the sailings."

The Knights apparently approved of their son's apartment, and within a year they, too, had moved in.  Born in Paris in 1873, Aston Knight first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1894.  In 1922, President Warren G. Harding purchased his The Afterglow for the White House.

Knight's wife was the former Caroline Ridgeway Brewster.  In addition to George and Diane, they had a son, Ridgway Brewster.  (Ridgway would go on to become American ambassador to Syria, Belgium and Portugal.)  

Along the Seine is typical of Aston Knight's work.

The Knights were visible in Manhattan society.  On February 20, 1939, for instance, The New York Sun published a photo of Diane in an evening gown and George in white tie at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, "where they were members of a dinner party."  Interestingly, when Diane married James R. Todd in the Church of the Transfiguration on June 25, 1940, The New York Sun noted, "A small reception will follow at the home of the bride's brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Knight, 161 East Eighty-eighth street," rather than her parents' apartment.

Living here in 1941 was Yolanda De Clifford, described by the New York Evening Telegram as, "a rather plump brunette...who says she is a singer, a linguist and a playwrighting collaborator."  Sharing her apartment was her Irish Setter, Erin's Pride, which she fondly called Tinko.

Yolanda De Clifford, The New York Sun, May 29, 1942

One afternoon while De Clifford was walking Tinko, he "rushed upon the tiny dog being walked by [Irving] Halpern and bowled it over," reported The New York Sun.  De Clifford explained to Halpern, who "seemed somewhat disturbed," that Tinko was "just being playful."

Halpern soon got over the incident and turned his attention to Tinko.  De Clifford said her dog was worth $750 (a considerable $14,000 today), and Halpern asked "if he might take the dog out walking sometime."  Yolanda De Clifford did some research and discovered that Halpern routinely walked other people's dogs.

When she fell ill on December 28, 1941, she remembered Halpern's offer and called him.  Immediately, both Halpern and Tinko disappeared.  Five months later, on May 29, 1942, The New York Sun reported, "If Irving Halpern weren't so fond of taking other people's dogs for walks he wouldn't be in jail trying to raise $500 bail."  

Halpern had finally been tracked down and brought to court.  "Tinko, he said, is somewhere on Long Island," reported The New York Sun, which added, "He has a record of twelve previous arrests, the police say, including a sentence in 1936 for three years in the Federal Penitentiary and a $500 fine for passing counterfeit money."  Whether Yvonne De Clifford was ever reunited with her pricey Irish Setter is unclear.

At the time, resident Edward F. Morrisey was serving in World War I aboard a Superfortress B-29 bomber.  On March 26, 1945, The New York Sun reported that Sergeant Morrisey had been awarded "the Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster to the Air Medal for outstanding and meritorious achievement on flights from India and Western China."

Educator Dr. George Kurke and his wife, the former Miriam Morris, lived at 161 East 88th Street during the war years.  Born in 1890, Kurke graduated from City College in 1910 and earned his law degree from New York Law School.  He received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1938.  The principal of Robert E. Simon Junior High School, he was also the editor of the Roosevelt Quarterly and associate editor of the Roosevelt House Review.  Nationally recognized for his innovations in education, he revised a series of arithmetic books for the American Book Company, was instrumental in developing a teacher's handbook and new type of report card, along with other public school improvements.  He received the Roosevelt Medallion for "distinguished service rendered in connection with Americanization work," according to The New York Times. 

Little has changed to the exterior of 161 East 88th Street.  Its Art Deco façade is an integral thread in the diverse architectural tapestry that makes up this Upper East Side block.

photographs by the author

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J. M. Felson's 1938 Southmoor House - 230 Central Park South

 

Born in Russia in 1886, Jacob M. Felson received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  At the time, The Hubert apartment house sat at 226-230 Central Park South.  In 1937, Felson was hired by the Park Slope Construction Corp., of which Siegfried Moisseiff was president, to design a modern apartment on the site of The Hubert.

Southmoor House was completed in June 1938.  Felson's subdued Art Moderne design included a stone base with reeded piers.  The entrance was framed by two stories of dark red stone that terminated in a faux balcony.  

The cover of the 1938 brochure depicted the new building.  from the collection of Columbia University's Avery Library.

With Central Park providing spectacular views, Felson gave the northern elevation an abundance of casement windows.  On July 30, 1938, the New York Sun remarked: 

230 Central Park South, opened about a month ago, overlooks the wide reaches of Central Park with a view of lawns and lakes unimpeded clear up to the northern end of the park.  Windows...have been cannily planned to take full advantage of the unusual views.  At Southmoor House, living rooms have been so designed that the entire wall facing the park is given over to an unbroken expanse of casement window.

Views to the south were equally impressive.  The real estate brochure mentioned that the "room width casement windows" on the south side of the building, "with Solarium effect, overlook the skyline of mid-Manhattan."  Noting that suites of one to six rooms were available, it said, "The rooms are large and well-planned and a spaciousness has been added by unusually large foyers, attractive dining galleries and convenient dressing rooms."  Among the building's up-to-the-minute amenities were "metal kitchen cabinets with stainless steel sinks," electric refrigerators, venetian blinds, and "master radio aerials."

The marquee over the entrance is a relatively recent addition.

The Southmoor House attracted several residents involved in the theater.  Among them was 27-year-old playwright Winifred Howe, who moved in in August 1935.  The challenges for a fledgling playwright in the Depression years were too much for Howe.  A month later, on September 28, the New York Post reported she "met her death in a fall from a sixth-floor window of the apartment house...She wore only a nightgown."  Winifred had left several suicide notes.  One of them, addressed to her father, said she "was sorry and very tired."

On March 11, 1941, The New York Times reported that with M. Clay's signing a lease, "that sixteen-story and penthouse structure is now 100 per cent rented."  Among the residents were the emerging entertainer Danny Kaye and his bride Sylvia Fine.  The couple was married in 1940 after they worked together in the short-lived The Straw Hat Revue, which opened on September 29, 1939.  Sylvia was the show's composer, lyricist and pianist.  Although it closed after ten weeks, the show landed both of them work at the La Martinique nightclub.  There, playwright Moss Hart saw Kaye and cast him in his 1941 comedy Lady in the Dark.

Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

It was the 30-year-old Danny Kaye's breakout role.  On December 31, 1941, columnist Jane Corby wrote in the Brooklyn Eagle that the newlyweds were, "living very well, thank you.  They have an apartment on [sic] swanky 230 Central Park South."  Kaye would go on to become one of America's best known actors, comedians, singers and dancers, starring in 17 motion pictures.

On March 13, 1947, before television was omnipresent, resident Ben Washer held a party to listen to the Academy Awards ceremonies from Hollywood on the radio in his apartment.  A bachelor, Washer was a press agent and manager.  Among the guests that night were the syndicated columnist Earl Wilson, composer Irving Berlin and his wife Ellin, and actor Frederic March and his actress wife Florence Eldrich.

The following day, Earl Wilson wrote, "Frederic March learned via radio somewhere around 2 a.m. today, that he'd won the Oscar for his part in 'Best Years of Our Lives.'"  Florence Eldrich told Wilson, "We're awfully happy.  He's become very proud already.  I've asked him three times to go home and he refuses."

Described by The Pittsburgh Press as the "longtime personal manager and companion" of actress Mary Martin, Ben Washer's life would end tragically.  On the evening of September 5, 1982, he was in an automobile in San Francisco with Martin, actress Janet Gaynor, and Gaynor's husband Paul Gregory.  The car was involved in a horrific crash with a drunk driver.  Washer was killed instantly.  The other occupants of the car were seriously hurt.  (Janet Gaynor died two years later from complications of her injuries.)

John and Helen Noga maintained an apartment in the Southmoor House as their New York pied-à-terre.  In the 1950s, the couple owned two San Francisco jazz clubs--the Downbeat and the Black Hawk--where renowned musicians like Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck performed.  It was at the Black Hawk that Helen Noga discovered 19-year-old Johnny Mathis.  She became his manager and made him a star.

In 1968, having landed a new position as a talent agent at the Ashley-Famous Agency, David Geffen leased the Nogas' apartment.  In his 2000 The Operator--David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood, Tom King writes, "The apartment was furnished with a white Steinway grand piano in the living room and a sweeping view of the park."

The following summer, one of Geffen's clients, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, was scheduled to appear on the The Dick Cavett Show on August 18.  Concerned that she would not be able to get back in time, Geffen convinced her not to attend the Woodstock festival.  Instead, according to Katherine Monk in her The Creative Odyssey of Joni Mitchell, she:

...watched this 'cosmic accident' unfold on television at Geffen's deluxe duplex at 230 Central Park South, a property owned by Helen Noga, the woman who made Johnny Mathis a star.  Spellbound by the sight of so many young people converging on Max Yasgur's six-hundred-acre dairy farm, Joni began composing the soundtrack for the rapidly evolving Woodstock myth:  "I came upon a child of God.  He was walking along the road.  And I asked him where are you going?  And this he told me: I'm going down to Yasgur's farm.  I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band.  I'm going to camp out on the land.  I'm gonna try and get my soul free."

At the time, attorney Philip Peitz lived in Southmoor House.  Few residents appeared in the media because of scandal, crime or other untoward reasons.  But Peitz was an exception.  The 36-year-old was convicted of illegally obtaining information from an employee of the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning an investigation in 1968 and was sentenced to three months in prison on January 9, 1970.

Seven years later, Peitz's name would be in the newspapers again, this time for being the court-appointed defense attorney for serial killer David Berkowitz--the infamous Son of Sam.  The attorney was in trouble again when he attempted to sell taped conversations with his client.  He was disbarred on December 8, 1977.

Southmoor House was renovated in 1994, and it was possibly at this time that the metal marquee was installed over the entrance, replacing a canvas awning that had extended nearly to the curb.  Other than that and the replacement windows, little has changed to J. M. Felson's sedate 1937 design. 

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

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J. M. Felson's 1931 40 West 86th Street

 

Despite the pall of the Great Depression, on October 21, 1931, The New York Sun reported, "The new nineteen-story and penthouse apartment house...at 40 West Eighty-sixth street has been completely rented."  The article noted, "The building contains sixty-one suites of three to six rooms.  Most of the apartments were leased on the plans."  The term "on the plans" meant that the apartments were rented from floorplans while the building was under construction.

Designed by Jacob M. Felson for the 40 West 86th Street Realty Corp., the brick-clad building presented an exuberant array of Art Deco decoration.  The entrance, framed in ribbed cast stone, was flanked by geometric-patterned windows.  Glazed terra cotta spandrel panels above the second and third floors sprouted brilliantly colored Art Deco ferns and plants.  The upper-floor spandrels featured corrugated brickwork.

Felson gave the setback levels streamlined, ocean liner-like Art Deco railings and large panels of splashy stylized fountain designs.

Vast, grouped casements flooded the apartments with northern light.

Journalist Geraldine Prosnitz of The New York Sun visited the building as it neared completion.  She wrote on August 12, 1931, "Even the doorknobs have gone modernistic in the new apartment buildings now being completed along the West Side.  At 40 West Eighty-sixth street...the hardware on the apartment doors is slightly reminiscent of the Empire State Building.  The builders say it was designed especially for them."   She described the five- and six-room units as having "dropped living rooms, dressing rooms attached to master bathrooms and a layout which really isolates bedrooms from living quarters."  Prosnitz noted,

Colored tiling in the bath rooms and colored stoves in the kitchen are added inducements.  But the best trick of all, in the opinion of this observer, ministering with equal impartiality to male and female weakness, is the adjustable mirror on the bathroom cabinet and the special vanity ensemble placed on the inside of the foyer closet door, in each apartment.

Rents for the three-room apartments started at $1,800 per year, the five-room apartments at $2,500, and the six-room units at $2,900.  Considering the height of the Depression, the rents were not cheap.  The beginning price for the six-room apartments would translate to about $4,650 per month in 2024.

Most of the residents were respectable professionals, like Bennett E. Siegelstein, an attorney and president of the Fenimore Country Club, who took "a large penthouse," according to The New York Sun as the building neared completion.  Others were less upstanding--like Irving Bitz.

Born in 1903, Bitz was the owner of a newspaper delivery firm.  But police were well aware he had ties to organized crime dating to the 1920s, including close relationships with Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.  In 1931, the year Bitz moved into 40 West 86th Street, he was a prime suspect in the murder of bootlegger Jack "Legs" Diamond.

Charlotte Erlanger also moved into the building that year--or at least that is the name she used when signing her lease.  A former musical comedy actress, her stage name was Charlotte Leslie and her actual surname was Fixel.  She took the surname Erlanger because of her long-standing intimate relationship with theatrical producer Abraham L. Erlanger.

Charlotte had met Erlanger around 1907 when she was a chorus girl.  By the 1920s, she referred to him as her husband, although the formality of a marriage ceremony had never taken place.  Her use of his surname on the lease was no doubt a calculated move.  Abraham Erlanger had died a year earlier, on March 7, 1930.  His estate was "estimated as high as $75,000,000," according to The New York Times--as much as $1.3 billion today.  He left the bulk of his estate to his brother and two sisters.  Charlotte Fixel went to court "to establish herself as the theatrical producer's common law widow," explained The New York Times on October 22, 1931.  

Charlotte Fixel in court in 1932. photo by Acme Newspictures, Inc.

The case dragged out for months, with a procession of witnesses supporting Charlotte's claims and providing details of their relationship that must have been either shocking or thrilling to readers.  On October 22, 1931, for instance, The New York Times began an article saying, "Miss Charlotte Fixel, former actress...was on intimate terms with the late Abraham L. Erlanger as far back as 1907 or 1908, according to testimony heard yesterday."  Finally, on July 27, 1932, the Daily News reported the "court has recognized Charlotte Fixel, former show girl, as common law wife of the late A. L. Erlanger, theatre operator, and entitled to one-third of his estate."

Three months later, on October 4, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced from Atlantic City, "Mrs. Charlotte Fixel, former showgirl...is to be married here Friday to Benjamin D. Abrahams, cloak and suit manufacturer of New York."  With her windfall (equal to about $480 million today) and a new husband, Charlotte gave up her apartment at 40 West 86th Street.

In the meantime, Irving Bitz's name appeared in newspapers  again in 1932.  The country was rapt with the on-going investigation of the kidnapping of the Charles Lindbergh baby.  Micky Rosner, who was rumored to know mobsters, proposed that Salvatore "Salvy" Spitale and Irving Bitz act as intermediaries between the mob and Lindbergh.  The aviator and his wife Anne quickly approved the plan (which brought no clues).

Irving Bitz was on the lam a year later.  Arrested in January 1933 on a gun-carrying charge, he jumped bail while awaiting trial.  Harold Cronin, president of the Concord Casualty and Surety Company, which had provided the $25,000 bail, hired private detectives to track him down.  Bitz surrendered in December 1933.

Irving Bitz (to the rear) arrives in court with a detective.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

In court on March 12, 1934, Harold Cronin received a startling surprise.  The Rochester Times-Union reported that Assistant District Attorney Irving Mendelson asked him where he lived when Bitz jumped bail.  "At 40 West 86th Street," he replied.

Mendelson told him, "All the time you were looking for Bitz, he and his wife were living in the same apartment house."

(Bitz's attorney contended that his client "had no intention of fleeing justice, but was too ill to appear for trial on the day set.")

Sharing an apartment in the building at the time were Virgil Prentice Ettinger; his wife, the former Barbara Martin Butler; and Virgil's sister, Muriel.  The Ettingers were married on February 11, 1930.  Virgil had become a vice-president in his brother's publishing firm, Prentice-Hall after graduating from New York University in 1921.  He left two years later, however, to establish his own accounting firm.

On June 1, 1932, Virgil took Muriel and 25-year-old Dorothy Molloy, an artist's model, for a ride in his automobile.  The car was involved in a collision with a moving van owned by the Leo E. Flynn, Inc. storage warehouse.  Dorothy Molloy not only sued the warehouse, but both Virgil and Muriel Ettiger for $50,000--about $1 million today--for "facial disfigurement."  Happily for the Ettingers, the jury did not find them at fault.  It awarded Molloy $5,326.30 from the Flynn company.

It may have been the stress of the Depression that proved too much for David Perlew.  The 55-year-old, who worked at Goddess Dance Frocks, Inc., lived here in 1935.  On December 13 that year, he left for work as usual, but he would not return.  The New York Post reported that he "hanged himself early today by a rope from a steam pipe in the showroom" of the firm.

Henry Benjamin and his wife, the former Ethel Fox, lived here in the 1940s.  Born in 1892, Benjamin started out as a clerk with with Davega-City Radio, Inc. in 1915.  By the time the couple moved into 40 West 86th Street, he had risen to vice president and merchandise manager.

A former president of the Fenway Country Club, Benjamin was highly active in philanthropies and was the industry chairman for the Federation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, the United Jewish Appeal and the Red Cross.  

In 1943, the Northwest Realty Corporation, headed by Samuel Rudin, purchased 40 West 86th Street.  The Rudin organization continues to own and manage the property.

A disturbing incident occurred here on August 26, 1986.  Workmen who were removing scaffolding from the building had propped open the two metal sidewalk doors leading to the basement.  Danger signs were placed around the opening, but Marcel Friedmann, who lived at 241 Central Park West, could not see the signs.  Legally blind, he used a metal cane to navigate the streets and sidewalks.  Tragically, the 85-year-old fell into the opening and was killed.

Jacob M. Felson's striking structure survives intact--including its all-important many-paned casement windows.  It is an unusual and notable example of Art Deco architecture in Manhattan.

photographs by the author

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