The Lost A. T. Stewart Mansion - Fifth Avenue and 34th Street

The upward slope of 5th Avenue is evidenced in the balustraded marble wall that surrounded the property.  Higher than pedestrians' heads at the front of the mansion, it is shoulder height toward the rear.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Called "one of the wonders of the City," the Samuel P. Townsend mansion on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street surpassed all others in cost and magnificence upon its completion in 1855.  So New Yorkers were startled when Alexander Turney Stewart announced plans to demolish and replace it with a new house in 1866.  But they had no idea of what was to come.

Stewart opened his first dry goods store in 1823, selling Irish lace and linens.  A consummate retailer, by 1848 he was known as the "Merchant Prince of America " and ran the largest emporium in the world, with branches in 12 countries, and before long was among the richest men in America.

He had married Cornelia M. Clinch, a daughter of successful ship chandler Jacob Clinch, on October 16, 1823.  Theirs was a somber marriage.  Stewart reputedly showed his wife little overt affection or warmth.  Their attempts to have a family ended in tragedy.   John Turney Stewart was born in 1834 and died a few weeks later; and May was stillborn in 1838.

Alexander Turney Stewart - Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 22, 1876 (copyright expired)

After having lived in progressively grander homes as his fortune grew, Stewart now set his sights on the former Townsend property, directly to the north of William B. Astor's mansion.  He hired architect John Kellum who had studied under the masterful Gamaliel King.  (The two were partners between 1846 and 1859.)

Kellum had earlier designed Stewart's department store on Broadway and 10th Street.  It was the beginning of a long professional relationship between the Stewarts and the architect.  For the Fifth Avenue mansion, he would stun Manhattan society by dismissing the expected brownstone or red brick and turning to gleaming white Tuckahoe marble.  And he designed the residence in the new French Second Empire style, recently introduced from Paris--a stark contrast to the stuffier Italianate houses still being erected.

The lavish home took several years and $2 million to complete.  Four stories tall above the rusticated basement level, the grandeur of the palace was such that it could turn its shoulder to Fifth Avenue and face 34th Street.  Not that it mattered; the Stewarts did not use an address--the house spoke for itself.

Paired Corinthian pilasters separated each bay of the first floor where delicate balconies clung to each opening.  A majestic marble staircase (it could hardly be called a "stoop") led to the entrance--a columned portico that upheld a matching balcony.  The configuration was copied as projecting columned balconies on the Fifth Avenue side.

The full-height mansard featured French-styled dormers and was crowned by delicate cast iron cresting.  A marble wall surrounded the property, about six feet high along the front.   Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly wrote "Mr. Stewart's marble palace, built on the site of the large structure formerly the residence of Dr. Townsend, is perhaps the handsomest and most costly private residence in the country."

Well-dressed pedestrians pass the newly-completed structure on a still residential Fifth Avenue Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, July 1876 (copyright expired)

D. Appleton and Company's Artistic Houses summed up the interiors succinctly:  "The interior of the Stewart mansion, at Fifth Avenue and thirty-fourth Street, is palatial.  Many European palaces are less so."

The first and second floors were clad in Carrara marble.  Artistic Houses described "The grand stairway and railing are entirely of white marble.  Every ceiling is eighteen feet nine inches high."  The vast entrance hall, lined with life-size statuary, led to the "grand picture-gallery."   To the left of the hall was the dining room, to the right were the reception room, the music room and the drawing room, accessed by a marble hallway.

The entrance hall had a museum-like quality.   Fluted marble columns uphold the giled ceiling.  To the rear is the doorway to the Picture Gallery above which the sweeping marble staircase can be glimpsed.  Artistic Houses, 1883 (copyright expired)

The ceilings and frescoed panels of the breakfast room, picture gallery and dining room were executed by Italian artist Mario Brigaldi who had earlier decorated Emperor Dom Pedro's imperial palace in Brazil.  The cost to Stewart was $5,000 for each room--about $97,000 today.  Brigaldi reportedly spent a full year in the house, decorating at least a portion of every room.

The drawing room extended the full width of the Fifth Avenue side.  "Furniture of gilded whitewood, covered with pale yellow satin, is disposed methodically," according to Artistic Houses.

The Reception Room (top) and the Music Room.  Works of art were distributed throughout rooms like these. Artistic Houses, 1883 (copyright expired) 

Frank Leslie's reported "Certainly the most interesting feature of the building, however, is the art gallery in the rear, where are located a large number of important and valuable works, selected by Mr. Stewart during his numerous visits abroad."  The magazine placed the value of the collection at $600,000.  "The picture gallery is about 50 ft. by 30 in dimension, and in this are placed the principal works, a large number, however, being hung in the parlors, drawing-rooms, and corridors."   Newspapers, magazines and books devoted columns to describing in detail the sculptures, porcelains, paintings, and tapestries distributed throughout the Stewart house.

The Picture Gallery.  There were more than 165 oil paintings in the collection--obviously more than wall space allowed for.  Paintings are propped up against the walls and life-sized sculptures.  Artistic Houses, 1883 (copyright expired)

On the second floor was the library, directly above the drawing room and running the full width of the Fifth Avenue side.  Books were hidden behind the mirrored doors of the black walnut bookcases.  Life-sized portraits of Alexander and Cornelia Stewart were exhibited here.  Gobelin tapestries hung on the walls and gilt-bronze chandeliers illuminated the crimson carpeting and wall panels.  The billiard room and the "Lace Room" shared this level.

Stewart's Library was sumptuously decorated--including marble door and window frames, walnut woodwork and gilt bronze chandeliers.  Artistic Houses, 1883 (copyright expired)

The third floor contained bedrooms, including two luxurious guest suites, one known as "General Grant's room."  It faced Fifth Avenue and its furnishings were rosewood.  The items for indelicate personal needs like washing and relieving oneself were discreetly disguised.  There were two "magnificent wardrobes and wash-stands combined; you open their central mirror-doors, and the lavatory apparatus is disclosed."

Cornelia Stewart's bedroom was the height of post Civil War period fashion. Artistic Houses, 1883 (copyright expired)

Despite the grandeur of their new Fifth Avenue home, there were rarely large entertainments here.  Cornelia notoriously avoided publicity and Alexander disdained wasteful expenditure.  When the couple did entertain, however, it was impressive.

On June 21, 1869, for instance, The New York Times noted that on the previous afternoon President Ulysses S. Grant "dined with Mr. A. T. Stewart, on Fifth-avenue."  And when the President and his wife were back in town following the White House wedding of their daughter Nellie to Algermon Charles Frederick Sartoris in May 1874, they were received by the Stewarts.  The New York Herald reported on May 23, "The entire party, consisting of the President and Mrs. Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris and their friends from Washington, took dinner at the residence of Alexander T. Stewart, after which all returned to their hotel."

The Stewarts would be hosts to another head of state seven months later.  On December 29 King Kalakaua of Hawaii, Royal Governor John Kapena and Hawaiian Chief Justice Elisha Hunt Allen were lunch guests here.

Artist Mario Brigaldi's work can be seen in the ceiling and wall panels of the Drawing Room.  Artistic Houses, 1883 (copyright expired)

Alexander T. Stewart was a somewhat complex man.  While he reprimanded his employees for using too much string to tie up packages, for instance, he gave munificently to charitable causes.  In 1869 he hired John Kellum to design a block-wide working women's hotel to help address the problems of struggling single women.

Around the first of April 1876, Stewart contracted a cold which progressed to what the The New York Herald indiscreetly described as an "inflammation of the bowels."  On April 10 the newspaper reported that "the great merchant millionaire" was critically ill in his mansion.   Stewart had ordered his doctors not to report any information on his condition.  "If it were stated that his illness was of a very grave nature the announcement would doubtless draw to the house troops of inquiring friends, which is not at present desirable."  That same day the tycoon died.

Crowds massed around the mansion following news of the millionaire's death.  Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, July 1876 (copyright expired)

The New-York Herald reported on April 13 "A force of police guarded the entrance and patrolled the street in front and these kept at a distance any sightseer whose curiosity might too much embolden him.  All through the day carriages were being driven up to the door and there deposited some solvent looking old man with sober face, who toiled up the grand staircase and disappeared behind the huge portal, only to have his identity with some well known financier become the subject of discussion among the people outside."

Inside "The maganificent halls were occupied by knots of gentlemen who discussed in undertones the great merchant's death...while round about them were the accumulations of masterpieces of art and the costly wonders of decorative beauty."

Stewart's body was laid in the Lace Room on the second floor.   The New York Herald reported on a rather macabre side-note.  "The body of Mr. Stewart lies in one of those new-fashioned preservers which have supplanted the ordinary ice coffin...Without coming in contact with any part of the body the ice is so arranged as to create and sustain around it a uniformly cold temperature, which is so free of moisture that the garments of the dead are perfectly dry."

The New York Times reported that the Lace Room was already filled with floral tributes and the funeral would be even more so.  The casket was to sit on "an oblong pyramid of flowers seven feet in length by three in width, composed of almost every description of floral treasures...At the head of the casket is to be placed a floral cross 6 feet high by 4 wide and 8 inches in diameter...A wreath of violets two fee in diameter will be attached to this piece."

At the foot of the casket a broken column, five feet in height was anticipated to be "of rare beauty."  An altar composed of camellias, lilies, roses and hyacinths would be at one side of the casket, and a four-foot tall harp of flowers would occupy the opposite side.  The Stewart store employees presented two floral "monuments" nine feet tall.

Stewart was temporarily buried in St. Mark's graveyard.  Cornelia called upon John Kellum once again to design a lasting memorial--the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island.  It would include a mausoleum for her husband and herself.

Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography now considered Cornelia Stewart "the wealthiest woman in the world."  She had inherited an estate estimated at between $30 and $40 million--as much as $950 million today (another estimated $10 million went to employees, Cornelia's relatives, and charities).  Tragically for her, with great fortune came fortune hunters,

Not long after the funeral Cornelia began receiving ghoulish letters from all parts of the United States, purportedly from her dead husband.  On June 1, 1876 The New York Herald said the letters, signed by Alexander T. Stewart, were "of a nature to shock the most indifferent readers."  They said in part, for instance:

I see the fatal mistake I made while on earth; I placed my confidence in persons unworthy of it and I caution you beware."

Another read:

...from the spirit land I see things clearly and you had better place the management of your affairs in the hands of whose parties who are named herein.

The letters were all delivered by messenger, not by mail.  The Herald noted "Hundreds of scheming and dishonest men and women have deliberately gone to work for the purpose of influencing Mrs. Stewart to regard all her dearest friends as treacherous, as people unworthy of the slightest confidence."

Immeasurable wealth did not buy Cornelia Stewart happiness. from the collection of the Garden City Archives  

But soon Cornelia would face an even more macabre plot.  On November 8, 1878 The New York Times ran the shocking story that "The grave of the late Alexander T. Stewart was successfully robbed between midnight and sunrise yesterday morning, and his remains carried off, evidently in the hope of obtaining a large ransom for their return."

The New York Herald opined that of the thousands present at Stewart's burial, none could imagine that his remains would "be ruthlessly disturbed by the demoniac hope entering the brain of some foul fiend of making money out of a traffic with the body."

Despite the best detective work, the grave robbers could not be found.  Six years later, on April 7, 1884 The New York Times printed hope when the notorious robber Lewis C. Sweigels promised to return the body in return for his pardon.  Working on behalf of Cornelia, Judge Henry Hilton paid the $25,000 ransom.  Whether or not the corpse was actually Stewart's remained a mystery.

The Stewarts had spent their summers in fashionable Saratoga Springs.  Cornelia left there on September 1, 1886 to return to her marble mansion.   On Saturday evening, October 23 her dressmaker arrived and had Cornelia try on several nearly-finished dresses.  Afterwards, Cornelia took a warm bath and went to bed.

By the following morning she had caught cold.  When it worsened, her doctor, J. C. Minor was summoned.  He diagnosed pneumonia.  She declined rapidly and around 9:30 on Monday morning she died.

Newspapers, of course, recounted her many philanthropies and her fabulous fortune--still estimated at $30 to $40 million--and her nearly incomparable art collection.  The New York Times noted "Since her husband's death, Mrs. Stewart has lived very quietly in the mansion at Fifth-avenue and Thirty-fourth-street, and her name has not appeared frequently in public prints of late years.  She always dreaded publicity or display."

As she had directed, Cornelia's funeral was much more reserved than her husband's.  She was buried in the crypt in the Cathedral of the Incarnation; The Times reporting that she now lay "beside the grave wherein Mrs. Stewart had always supposed that the remains of her husband reposed."  It was a slightly-veiled reference to the questionable corpse.

The Stewart mansion sat vacant for more than two years while The Manhattan Club negotiated with the estate.  Then, on December 13, 1889, The Evening World ran the headline "Palace For A Club" and reported that the Manhattan Club would soon "enjoy the finest club home in America."  The had club signed a 21-year lease with an annual rental of $35,000.

The exclusive men's club would not live out its lease, however.  On January 8, 1898 The Sun reported that it was "already heavily burdened by debt and the great cost of conducting its clubhouse."  The following year it moved out.   What would become of the magnificent structure was on the mind of nearly every New Yorker.

On February 2, 1901 the New-York Tribune announced an outlandish scheme.  It said that negotiations were underway for the purchase of the mansion as a gift for a charitable institution.  If successful, the unnamed benefactor would "remove the structure at his own expense and have it erected, in its present form, somewhere in Westchester."  Not surprisingly, the scheme never came to pass.

Instead, demolition began two months later.  Policemen were to be stationed at the site to stop pilferers.  The New York Times reported on March 6 "Hundreds of workmen are daily demolishing into a reminiscence what was once the grandest residence in New York, and collectors of curios from the old house have been busy for the past week."

The windows have been removed and billboards sully the marble wall as demolition gets underway in 1901.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

The palaces of Europe to which the mansion had been compared upon its completion lasted for centuries.  The palaces of Manhattan stood for mere decades, razed with a cavalier disregard for architectural nobility in order to concede to what was commonly called "the march of progress."

The corner today.

The Lost Steinway Hall -- 109 E. 14th Street

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW6S99YY&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=629

According to family history, Heinrich Engellhardt Steinweg wanted his son to learn music, so he crafted a small piano for him in 1834.   He merged the German and English construction methods, drawing the attention of musicians who commissioned their own instruments.  The beginnings of an astounding rise to fame and wealth had begun.

In 1850 Heinrich and his wife, Julianne, emigrated to New York with seven of their nine children (one son was already here, having sailed ahead to investigate the possibilities of opening a piano-making firm in America).  Once here Heinrich changed his name to Henry Engelhardt Steinway.   The eldest son, C. F. Theodore Steinweg, remained in German.

Henry and his older sons obtained jobs in New York piano firms, learning the American trade.  Three years later, on March 5, 1853, Henry, Charles and Henry Jr. established Steinway & Sons in “a curiously small edifice in Varick-street,” according to The New York Times a few years later.   The men crafted about one piano per week.  Son William was admitted to the firm in 1856 and Albert in 1866.

The quality of the Steinway instrument was unparalleled.   Only two years after opening the business, a Steinway piano won the gold medal at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1855.  In 1860 the “curiously small edifice” was abandoned for a large factory on Fourth (later renamed Park) Avenue between 52^nd and 53rd Streets.  The Steinways continued to make improvements to the piano-forte; and in 1862 they took a daring move.

That was the year of the great London International Exhibition.  Steinway & Sons crated four piano-fortes and shipped them across the Atlantic.  The New York Times reported “The initiated know what those packages contain, and 265 of the initiated laugh into their sleeves at the idea of America sending piano-fortes to London,--to Europe.  Some of them speak about exporting coals to New-Castle; some of them are indignant at Yankee audacity; the kindliest shake their heads and pass on.  No one for a moment imagines that those iron-bound cases may contain something good, and so the good folk halloed whilst they were in the wood, and hearing their own shouts thought all was safe and jolly.”

The Europeans who scoffed at the Steinways were taken aback when the American pianos received the first prize.  The Steinway piano was now internationally acclaimed.  Upon their return to New York the firm laid plans for additional and necessary expansion.

On January 26, 1863 The New York Times reported “Messrs. Steinway & Sons, the eminent pianoforte makers, have purchased a large piece of ground adjoining Irving Hall, and running through from Fourteenth to Fifteenth streets, on which to erect show-rooms for their extensive business.  They have made provision also for a handsome concert-room, suitable for chamber-music, and capable of comfortably seating five or six hundred people.  A hall of this description has been long wanted.”

The neighborhood the Steinways had chosen was the fashionable Union Square, still surrounded by brick and brownstone mansions.  Steinway & Sons would be among the first incursions of commerce; but its choice of location was no doubt prompted by the proximity not only to Irving Hall, but to the Manhattan’s elite opera house, the Academy of Music.

A stereopticon view reveals the residential nature of the block surrounding the new building. (copyright expired)

The architect, John Kellum, designed the Steinway & Sons building to gently slip into the row of upscale homes along the north side of 14^th Street.  He added a projecting portico to the handsome Italianate façade which breached the property line.  On March 23, 1893 the Common Council met to consider the building’s intrusion onto public property.  Before the men left the room they had resolved:

"That permission be and is hereby given to Messrs. Steinway & Sons to extend the columns forming their main entrance on the northerly side of Fourteenth-street, between Irving-place and Fourth-avenue, a distance not to exceed six feet beyond the line of the street.”  The Council made it clear that down the road the portico may have to be removed.  “The permission hereby granted to continue only through the will and pleasure of the Common Council.

Special approval was necessary for the projecting portico.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

On May 10, 1864 Steinway & Sons opened not only an additional wing to their factory, but the “new and magnificent marble wareroom in East fourteenth-street,” as reported in The New York Times the following day.  The newspaper added that the firm was “now the largest piano-forte markers in the world.  They employ many hundred hands, and use all the labor-saving machinery that has yet been discovered by themselves of others, to expedite the various processes.”

While facades of cast iron that mimicked carved stone were appearing throughout the city, the Steinway building was faced in white marble.  Four stories tall, its sedate countenance looked perhaps more like an elite school or civic building than a retail business.   The New York Times deemed it “an exceedingly handsome marble building—the handsomest, in our opinion, in the City—and admirably adapted for the uses intended.”

Esteemed citizens first were shown the new factory addition, then were entertained in the 14^th Street building.  Following the reception here, speeches were made and well-known pianists performed.  “Here a collation was served, on the return of the guests, which was bounteous and excellent; that which satisfies the palate and that which make the wits sparkle were in abundance, and a most pleasant time was had.  There were, the active duties at the feast being through, good things said by Messrs. Watson, Willis, Morford, Du Salie, Mills, Ryan and Jones, and splendid playing on the ‘grand’ by Messrs. Mills, Sanderson, Groesbeck and Wood.”

The interiors of the first floor showrooms featured black walnut woodwork and marble mosaic flooring.  A stairway led to the second floor where the grand pianos were exhibited.  The top two floors were reserved for music rooms and rented musicians’ studios.

With soaring success came wrenching grief.  Because of his ill health, Charles had traveled to Europe in 1864.  The New York Times said “He placed himself under a physician, and patiently attained to convalescence.”  In the meantime, Henry, Jr. was suffering what the newspaper called “a long and painful illness.”  On Saturday morning, March 11, 1865, Henry succumbed to consumption at the age of 34. 

Exactly three weeks later, on April 1, “after a sickness of twenty-four days, of typhoid fever, Mr. Charles Steinway breathed his last in the house of his brother, Mr. Theodore Steinway, who represented the European branch of the business in that city,” reported The New York Times.

In florid Victorian prose, the newspaper announced the family’s second loss within a month.  “Death sweeps over the land with so swift and dark a wing, that we can hardly detect in its black shadow whose friend has fallen.  Whilst Mr. Albert Steinway was following the body of his chief—whom we all mourned with womanly eyes—to the grave, the news came from Europe that his brother had died.”

The loss of the two major forces in Steinway & Sons was potentially devastating for the firm.  Henry Sr. was now 68 years old and William, the only member of the firm now in New York was just 30.  The New York Times assured its readers, however, that the company would persevere.  “The operations of the house will be circumscribed by the calamity which has overtaken it.  Mr. Theodore Steinway will abandon the German branch of the establishment, and at once assume an active part in the headquarters at New-York.”

The symbols of mourning that decorated the Steinway building were brought out again two weeks later.  On April 15 President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C.   April 19, the day of the funeral, was declared a National Day of Mourning.  The New York Times remarked on the appearance of houses, stores and other buildings; noting that the “extensive warerooms of Steinway & Sons, on Fourteenth-street…are markedly noticeable for effective arrangement of bunting and crape.”

As places of entertainment arose in the Union Square neighborhood, an unwanted by-product followed:  prostitution.  High class brothels crept into the upscale vicinity, much to the displeasure of the righteous Victorian women of the area.  On October 3, 1865 The New York Times reported “Yesterday afternoon a lady who had been annoyed by the inmates of Irene McCready’s palatial den, nearly opposite Steinway’s piano-forte warehouse, in East Fourteenth-street, made a complaint at Jefferson Market Police Court.”

A crew of officers “entered Miss McCready’s gorgeous parlors at about 11 o’clock, and at once investigated the house and made prisoners” of eleven women.   The male patrons “who had ‘never before been in the house,’” were released with an admonition while the prostitutes were jailed.  The newspaper described the brothel as “most expensively furnished, the parlors alone having cost $10,000.”  It added “Mr. Steinway is resolved that she shall move from East Fourteenth-street.”

In the spring of 1866 Steinway & Sons embarked on an expensive and brilliant marketing scheme.  On May 26 the cornerstone was laid for Steinway Hall, adjoining the showroom building to the rear.  The Mayor and “a number of managers, artists and reporters” assisted in the ceremony.

A proper concert hall, it would include dressing rooms, two balconies, a stage that could accommodate a full 100-piece orchestra, and seating for 2,500 persons.  Interestingly, the Steinways designed the structure themselves, forgoing the services of an architect.  William Steinway would later famously remark “One concert on Saturday night sells pianos on Monday morning.”

The new hall, costing $90,786 (about $1.4 million today) rivaled, if not surpassed, any other in the city.  But it was used as much for lectures as it was for musical events.  It was here in 1867 and 1868 that Charles Dickens gave readings of his own works.  In December 1867 J. D. Reymert delivered an “elaborate lecture” regarding the famine in Sweden which had claimed many lives and left 200,000 without food.

Harper's Weekly published an etching of the line for tickets to hear Charles Dickens in 1867 -- from the collection of the Library of Congress

Over the coming years Steinway Hall would be the scene of the American debuts of the famous Swedish soprano Chrstina Nilsson, pianist Anton Rubinstein, and violinist Henri Wieniawski.  Mark Twain addressed the audience here as did Edwin Forrest; and patrons thrilled to the voice of Adelina Patti.  When Madame Parepa-Rosa appeared in a “grant oratorio performance” on February 20, 1868, The New York Times called it “the best oratorio performance every heard in America;” added that “the ‘house’ was the largest ever brought together in Steinway Hall;” and said “Of Mme. Parepa-Rosa’s singing we have nothing to say.  It was simply perfect.” 

A rather bizarre event in the Hall occurred on June 2, 1870.  The New York Times reported that “‘The daughter of Lola Montez’ was introduced by Mrs. E. C. Stanton at Steinway Hall to a small audience last evening as ‘the Princess Editha, daughter of King Leopold and the Countess of Landsfeldt,’ and delivered a lecture, in which she took ground against ‘woman’s rights.’  She railed against King Leopold and “her cousin, Queen Victoria.”  The article closed saying “She was richly dressed in low-necked costume, and carried a man’s hat in her hand.  She gave notice that henceforth she would appear in the streets in the suit of man’s clothes.”

In 1872 the firm boasted the production of ten pianos per day -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

In the meantime, customers in the 14^th Street could expect to pay high prices for instruments described in newspapers as “of the most elegant and valuable nature.”  On Christmas Day 1872 the firm advertised square pianos ranging in price from $550 to $1,000 and grand pianos from $1,050 to $1,600—more than $32,000 in today’s dollars.  If the shopper desired “the fancy-wood and inlaid pianos,” he could expect to pay an even higher price.

Following the assassination of President Garfield, a concert by Mme. Pauline Canissa was held in the Hall for the benefit of his mother on December 2, 1881.  She was accompanied by the full orchestra of Theodore Thomas.  The German-born conductor was the most highly-esteemed in America and his orchestra would give annual concert series in Steinway Hall for years.

 

The Theodore Thomas Orchestra poses on the stage of Steinway Hall -- from the collection of the Library of Congress

Within a decade the entertainment district was moving northward and Union Square was ringed with commercial buildings and offices.  On May 3, 1890 The New York Times reported the startling.  The evening before H. E. Krehbiel delivered a lecture on “The Precursors of the Pianoforte.”  The newspaper noted “With Mr. Krehbiel’s lecture Steinway Hall closed its noble record of nearly a quarter of a century as a place of musical and literary entertainment.  It begins to-day a humbler but still a very useful career as a place of storage for the pianos manufactured by its owners.”

The article went on to list the luminaries who had performed here, including the singers, pianists and organists, and the conductors (along with Theodore Thomas were Walter Damrosch, Anton Seidl and Carl Bergmann, among others).    Victor Herbert appeared here after his command performance before the Court of Wurtemberg.  The newspaper said “This is only a part of the list that Steinway Hall can boast of, and it is doubtful if any other four walls in the country have heard the same amount of good music.  To music-loving New-Yorkers the news of the close of its career comes like the announcement of the death of an old friend.”  But, explained the newspaper, “Fourteenth Street has grown pretty far down town for concert entertainment, and besides that the Messrs. Steinway need the space of the old hall for storage purposes.”

Just as Union Square became less acceptable for a concert hall, the upscale shopping districts had moved northward as well.  Other piano manufacturers opened new up-to-date showrooms on Fifth Avenue.  But Steinway, at least for now, remained.  On October 4, 1900 company secretary Nahum Stetson “emphatically denied” that the building at 109 East 14^th Street had been sold; although he admitted to reporters that “the property has been the subject of more or less active negotiations at one time or another.”

By the turn of the century, the houses on either side of Steinway & Sons had been converted for business purposes -- photo Byron & Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW6S99YY&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=629

Pianos continued to be sold from the lower floors and musicians, composers and teachers leased the studios.  On August 30, 1908 the New-York Tribune noted that “Gustav L. Becker, concert pianist, teacher, and composer, has returned from abroad and resumed teaching at his studio in Steinway Hall, No. 109 East Fourteenth Street.”

Then in 1910 Steinway & Sons finally let go of their white marble building.  Montifiore G. Kahn purchased it for $1.215 million as “an investment.”  He told reporters “he felt in view of the favorable location and the historical associations of Steinway Hall that the investment was a good one and he meant to retain the property.”

Nevertheless, Steinway remained as a tenant.  On July 4, 1916 The New York Times reported “Following the northern trend of trade, Steinway & Sons, piano manufacturers, whose offices and salesrooms have been on East Fourteenth Street, for the last fifty-eight years, have purchased a new home site on West Fifty-seventh Street and will erect a ten-story building, estimated to cost about $500,000.”

And yet it would be another seven years before the new headquarters was completed.   In the interim, somewhat surprisingly, in October 1921, after decades of use as a warehouse, Steinway Hall was the scene of a concert again.   The New York Times reported that pianist Yolando Mero would play in the auditorium “dedicated by Barona-Rosa Oct. 31. 1867, and popularly abandoned since the early nineties to its memories of Patti, Rubinstein, Pachmann and MacDowell.”

But any hopes of resurrection were short lived.  As Steinway & Sons prepared to move to West 57^th Street, the hearts of musicians nationwide sank.  On May 5, 1923 The Music Trade Review wrote “The announcement that Steinway Hall on East Fourteenth street, New York, has passed from the hands of Steinway & Sons marks the end of what is beyond all probability the greatest musical landmark, not only in this city, but in the United States.”  The Review added “When the day comes for the structure to be razed it will be one of which no musician and no piano man, no matter what may be his affiliation, can think without a feeling of regret.”

The auditorium was captured on film just prior to the building's demolition.  The unusual vantage point is from the stage, looking toward wide entrance hall -- from the collection of the Library of Congress

The coming of that day was not far off.  The Steinway building was purchased by the S. Klein Union Square Realty Corporation the same month.   The dignified white marble structure was razed and on January 6, 1926 the cornerstone of Klein’s Department store, designed by B. W. Berger & Son was laid.

photo citirealty.com

Today the 29-story Zeckendorf Towers, completed in 1987, stands on the site.  Lost to memory is that the most important concert hall in America, the stage of which saw the most celebrated figures in music and literature, once stood here.

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The Tweed Courthouse -- City Hall Park

photo by Alice Lum

In the decade prior to the Civil War the County of New York made do with a small brownstone building erected in 1852.  Only six years later a movement was underway to erect a substantial courthouse.  Public stocks were sold to garner the funds.

The public was offered Court-House Stock to raise funds -- the New-York Daily Trubune, February 16, 1865 (copyright expired)

Commissioners quickly realized that the original 1858 estimate of $250,000 for the building was inadequate.  They raised the budget to $1 million the following year—more in the neighborhood of $27 million today.  In the meantime William M. Tweed was garnering increased political power. 

In 1857 Tweed became a member of the Board of Supervisors, the county’s chief legislative body.  By the time ground was broken for the County Court House the day after Christmas in 1861, Tweed and his “ring” would wield unfettered control. 

When the cornerstone was laid the names of two architects were placed inside.  Thomas Little, of Thomas Little & Son, apparently drew up the initial plans in 1859; but on August 30, 1861 the Board of Supervisors determined “to employ a suitable architect.”  John Kellum’s name would accompany Little’s in the small box within the cornerstone.

Kellum was reaching the apex of his career and the County Courthouse would be a monumental accomplishment.   Constructed of white marble, it took its inspiration greatly from the United States Capitol building as well at the 1735 Mansion House in England.  A sketch in 1868 shows the structure capped with an imposing dome; creating a striking similarity to the Capitol.  In 1869 New York Illustrated mentioned “when completed, the building will be surmounted by a large dome, giving a general resemblance to the main portico of the Capitol at Washington.”

In 1868 Valentine's Manual published a sketch of the proposed building with its never-executed dome -- copyright expired

The Civil War caused a temporary halt in construction, but by 1865 the exterior was essentially completed and work had begun on the interiors.  By the time the Court of Appeals moved into the unfinished structure in March 1867, the rampant graft and corruption of the Tweed Ring was already being noticed.

In 1866 Supervisor Smith Ely, Jr. raised a red flag, saying “grossly extravagant and improper expenditures have been made by the persons having charge of the building of the new courthouse, in reference to the purchase of iron, marble and brick, and in the payment of various persons for services.”  In fact, Tweed and his cronies were paying highly inflated prices and taking 20 percent of the billing costs for themselves.

On September 9, 1871 cranes are in place as the building continues to rise -- Harper's Weekly, (copyright expired)

On October 2, 1871 the New-York Tribune printed a scathing report that said in part “There certainly never were more barefaced or bolder robberies perpetrated under any government than have been committed under ‘Ring’ rule in this City…Over ten millions of dollars has been paid in two years and a half simply for decorating and furnishing the County Court-House, Wm. M. Tweed’s new office on Broadway, and the Mayor’s Office.”

Just over three months earlier, John Kellum died, never to see his monumental civic building completed.  The task of completing the court house was passed to Leopold Eidlitz in 1875.  Eidlitz was not interested in sympathetically melding his designs with Kellum’s.   Instead his southern wing was a Victorian take on medieval styles.

 

A postcard captured Eidlitz's incongruous southern wing -- copyright expired

In the meantime, in what was a case of supreme irony, William M. Tweed appeared in what would soon be popularly termed the Tweed Court House on November 19, 1873.  He had been arrested on October 27, 1871 and within the year was convicted on 204 counts.

Eidlitz’s disregard for Kellum’s classic design raised the wrath of some architectural critics.  On April 29, 1877 The New York Times criticized “it is also charged that the new style of architecture is wholly out of keeping with the rest of the building and that while it might be well enough in a fashionable church on Fifth Avenue, or a highly decorated lager beer brewery at Yorkville, it is cheap and tawdry in comparison with the elaborate finishing and classic exterior of the present structure.”

Top:  The ornate, cast iron staircase reflected Kellum's Italianate design.
Bottom:  Eidlitz added his touch with medieval details.  photos from the Library of Congress

After two decades of construction the New York County Courthouse was finally—essentially, anyway—completed in 1881.  Despite the exorbitant costs New York had a sumptuous civic structure; but the stain of the Tweed scandal blinded the public to its beauty and would threaten its existence for over a century to come.

The new County Courthouse attracted a peculiar crowd of loiterers and eccentrics.  On June 20, 1886 the New-York Tribune noted “The queer people seen and the queer things they say in the new County Court House that Tweed built are worthy of being chronicled…There were broken-down politicians, old and used-up officials, persons willing to show strangers the Court House for a small consideration, others ready to assist those who wanted to become naturalized and others too lazy to do anything.”

The stark difference in Eidlitz's architectural style was harshly criticized -- photo by Alice Lum

On April 11, 1888 the building was used for the wedding of Julia Clarkson, “the pretty daughter of Edward Clarkson, janitor of the building, to Edward J. Reynolds, a well-known builder.”  The Sun reported that “Boss Tweed’s twenty-million-dollar Court House was the theatre of an unusual scene last evening.  Three of the solemn court rooms were converted into a spacious banquet hall and ball room to accommodate a wedding party.”

“An orchestra was stationed in front of the Judge’s bench in the equity division, and dainty feet marked time to its music on floors that had hitherto echoed only to the ponderous tread of men of affairs,” said the newspaper.

Before long, however, there would be talk of demolishing the building that took up newspaper space.  On September 13, 1893 The New York Times reported on the 130 architectural plans that had been received in a competition for a new City Hall.  Along with it came a movement to demolish the courthouse.

It seemed only Controller Myers saw the qualities of the building.  The newspaper said “He thought that the Court House had come in for more than its just share of abuse.  The building cost, with furniture, over $14,000,000, and despite the fact that much of this enormous outlay was squandered, it is nevertheless an imposing structure.”

The courthouse survived; but just seven years later it was in danger again.  Officials pressed to clear City Hall Park of all buildings other than the venerable City Hall.  The New York Times chimed in saying on March 13, 1901, “that especially the Tweed Court House, as an ugly monument of fraud and municipal disgrace, should be razed as soon as accommodation can be had elsewhere for the uses it now very imperfectly and inconveniently subserves.”

A reader wrote to the editor of the newspaper in response.  “No building in New York is so generally disliked as the Court House, and honest men long for the day when the space it has polluted shall be restored to the much-abused City Hall Park.”

The debate was still hot in July 1902 when it was suggested that $2 million could refurbish the old building.  “And as to spending two millions on the Tweed Court House, which is a stench in the moral olfactories of all New Yorkers, and which has nothing architecturally valuable, excepting the incongruous addition which puts it to an open shame, that was a very improvident judicial expression of dissatisfaction with quarters which are undoubtedly dissatisfying which led certain revered Justices of the Supreme Court to commit themselves to it,” railed The New York Times on July 19.

Two years later plans for the new courthouse had advanced no further; and the Tweed Courthouse was falling into disrepair.  On September 13, 1904 The Sun noted “the old Tweed court house [is] daily falling into a more dilapidated condition, despite constant patching and attempts at improved ventilation, with the rain pouring through its cracked walls and wornout roofs whenever there is a storm.”

More and more it became evident that the neglected building was no longer adequate for the growing county courts system.  Nevertheless the Board of Estimates continued to drag its feet regarding a new structure.  In July 1911 The Times was still supporting the idea of removing all buildings from City Hall Park other than the magnificent Federal style City Hall.  It bluntly wrote “The Tweed Court House must go.”

Astoundingly, despite what was nearly universal support to destroy the County Courthouse, it survived.  When, in 1915, a proposal was suggested to enlarge it, its fervent nemesis The New York Times reacted.  “It is proposed…to enlarge the Tweed Court House, which is unsightly and uncomfortable and a disgrace to the city.”

The new New York County Courthouse nearby on Centre Street was finally completed in 1927.  With the courts gone, the old Tweed building seemed destined for destruction.  Yet it survived, being used for the City Court until its next major threat—Mayor Fiorella La Guardia’s thrust to clean up the city for the 1939 World’s Fair.  Among his first priorities was the restoration of City Hall Park.

“Mayor La Guardia is eager to complete the work on the park in time for the World’s Fair, so that visitors may have a vista of City Hall from historic St. Paul’s Chapel at Vesey Street,” explained The Times on May 21, 1938.  “Mayor La Guardia is also eager to have the old Tweed court house in the park behind the City Hall razed and administration officials have been trying to find new quarters for the City Court now located there.”

But the old courthouse hung on.  A year later Parks Commissioner Robert Moses was still seeking appropriations to raze the building.  “The only blot on the landscape which will remain at the end of 1940 if these funds are appropriated will be the so-called ‘Tweed’ Court House,” he beamed on September 18, 1939.

Nearly half a century of attempts to destroy the monumental court house had proved fruitless when in the spring of 1942 Chambers and Lafayette Streets were widened as part of an improvement plan for City Hall Park.  In describing the necessary removal of the entrance stairs on April 9, 1942, The New York Times used what was perhaps its first positive adjective since the building had been completed.

“Workmen of the WPA were busy yesterday demolishing the imposing but long unused flight of steps leading from Chambers Street to the rotunda of the old County Court House…familiarly known as the Tweed Court House.”

The widening of Chambers Street resulting in the chopping off of the grand entrance stairs -- photo Library of Congress

But the threat to its survival was not over yet.  In 1948 the City Planning Board discussed the development of the Manhattan Civic Center.  The New York Times said on June 25 “it envisages also the demolition of the old Tweed Court House and consequent improvement of City Hall Park.”

Yet once again, the court house dodged the bullet.

One might have guessed that by the 1970's the Tweed Courthouse was finally safe.  But almost immediately upon taking office in 1974, Mayor Abraham Beame set out to demolish it.  The Times said on July 7 that year “Its demolition, never announced publicly, was an early, almost instant administrative decision.  It was simply the ultimate extension of the conventional wisdom that the building is nothing but a shoddy piece of graft.”

Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it “a substantial and stylish building” with “impressive interiors.”  She flatly pointed out “In spite of its obvious qualifications, the Courthouse is not a designated landmark.  It has been so universally repudiated for its unsavory associations that it is probably too hot a political potato for the Landmarks Commission.”

Against all odds the imposing yet maligned structure survived its final threat.  In 1984 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Tweed Courthouse a New York City Landmark.  In 1999 a full-scale, two-year restoration was initiated.  The $85 million project not only uncovered layers of paint inside, but replaced missing or damaged marble elements of the façade.  The entire marble cornice was reconstructed—requiring 120 blocks of stone, some weighing 9,600 pounds. 

photo by Alice Lum

In what was perhaps the most noticeable part of the restoration, the grand entrance steps were rebuilt.  Inside, an octagonal stained and etched glass skylight--52-foot wide—was refashioned to replace the original, lost decades earlier. 

Today the future of the monumental courthouse that brought down the infamous Boss Tweed is secure.  Its elegant design and historical value are finally appreciated after more than a century and a half.

The 1859 Friends Meeting House -- 28 Gramercy Square South

photo by Alice Lum

The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, fled to America in the 17^th century seeking relief from religious persecution.  They were gravely disappointed.

New Amsterdam’s Governor Peter Stuyvestant unabashedly despised both Jews and Quakers.  In 1656 he forbade the citizens of the Village of Flushing to “admit, lodge or entertain…any one of the heretical and abominable sect called the Quakers.”  Quaker worship was outlawed and the sect was forced to meet in secret.

Tolerance slowly surfaced.  By 1681 Quakers were openly worshiping and in 1734 they were granted the same civil rights as other British subjects.  The Militia Act of 1755 exempted the pacifist group from serving in the military.

Ironically it would be dissention from within their ranks, rather than outside influences, that caused the worst problems in the first decades of the 19^th century.  A religious fashion swept the nation’s cities that focused on intense study of the Bible.  Traditionally, the Quakers were more concerned with direct inspiration from God than academic Bible teachings.

A difference of religious opinion among the Religious Society of Friends rapidly grew from a crack into a gaping chasm.  One group, led by Elias Hicks of Long Island, stood fast with the traditional Quaker traditions.  Another was open to the new movement.  In 1828 the Society of Friends underwent a quiet and peaceful split, known as the Hicksite Schism.  There were now the Hicksite and Orthodox branches.

Quaker worship, both in liturgy and architecture, was notable for its simplicity and lack of show.  So the Orthodox branch's choice of location for a building lot in 1855 was, perhaps, a bit surprising.  The group purchased the plot at 28 Gramercy Square as the site of its new meeting house.

The Square was two decades old.  Ringing the landscaped park were the brick and brownstone mansions of some of New York’s wealthiest and most influential citizens.  The wide lot at the southeastern edge of the square would place the unassuming Quakers squarely amid the city’s most assuming population.

The land was purchased for $24,000—nearly half a million dollars today.   On it the Friends would erect a chaste two-story meeting house.   The congregation hired the architectural firm of King & Kellum to design the structure with the admonishment that the house have no “useless ornament so as not to wound the feelings of the most sensitive among us.”

John Kellum and Gamaliel King carefully followed that direction.   Construction began in 1857 and was completed two years later.   What resulted was an unsullied Italianate design clad in warm, yellow Ohio sandstone.   Often mistaken for Greek Revival, the meeting house rose to a dramatic peaked pediment, the end returns of which defined the slightly-projecting end bays.

photo by Alice Lum

The unpretentious but elegant structure exemplified William Wistar Comfort’s later description of a Quaker meeting house.  “The meeting house is not a consecrated edifice, and if there is anything holy about it, it must be the lives of the people who meet there.”

Here in the years just before the Civil War, slaves escaping to Canada were reportedly given shelter.

To the mostly Episcopalian population around Gramercy Park, the quiet gatherings in the meeting house—which had no formal ceremony nor designated minister—must have been alien.   Quaker services were marked by “expectant waiting.”  Friends entered in silence and sat wordlessly to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Only when one was moved to speak or sing was the silence interrupted.  Intervals between were often lengthy, and it was possible that no one would speak at all.

Such was the case when The Sun described the funeral of attorney Richard H. Bowne here on May 6, 1881.

“The funeral was plain.  The hearse, followed by about a dozen carriages, arrived at the meeting house door at 4:30 P.M.  The coffin was of solid oak covered with black cloth.  On each side were three silver-bar handles.  On the lid was a floral sickle, crossing a golden sheaf of wheat.  There were no other flowers…After the coffin had been carried into the church there was an interval of silence.  Then the Rev. Mr. Donaldson of the Fort Washington Episcopal Church, where Mr. Bowne usually attended in the summer, read from one of St. Paul’s Epistles, and made some remarks in which he said that Mr. Bowne was one of the men who leave the world better for their having lived in it.  There was another prolonged interval during which no one spoke, after which Henry Dickenson, the minister of the Friends’ Society, offered prayer.  There was a pause, and Mr. Dickenson made an address.”

Thirty-five years before Bowne’s funeral another rift had occurred among the Quakers.  An annual meeting was held in the larger cities, drawing Quakers from far away.  At the time of the meetings it was customary for each city to send friendly letters to the other groups.

In 1846 the annual meeting in Philadelphia was “divided over the question of heresy,” according to The New York Times, and “through motives of policy failed to send to New York and other yearly meetings the usual epistles of brotherly love, exhortation, and admonition.”

The New York Orthodox branch felt snubbed and communication between the New York Friends and those of Philadelphia ceased.  Then during the annual meeting in May 1897, after half a century of simmering bitterness, the first letter from Philadelphia arrived.  The Gramercy Park congregation reacted with expected Quaker decorum and politeness.

Clerk James Woods explained to the assembly about the letter and “asked if the epistle should be read.”

“I feel that God will that we should hear it,” said Sister Ruth S. Murray.

Her pronouncement was met with “It is right to do so,” “I also,” and “It is well we should,” from throughout the hall.  The clerk passed the letter to Assistant Clerk David S. Tabor to read.   “It was filled with sound doctrine and exhortations to all to stand firm in the faith, and for the great cause of universal peace and good will,” reported The Times.

Now the problem was how to respond; or if to respond.  The letter had not been addressed specifically to the New York meeting, but to “all bodies and individuals known as of the Society of Friends.”

Some felt that the epistle, being general, needed no response.  Others felt it was time to heal old wounds.  “Then came a reaction,” said the newspaper.  “Pride came to the fore.  It was displayed chiefly among the older men, some of whom could remember the bitterness of fifty years ago.

“Again the apostles of peace gave voice to the spirit, but in all there was a delicate choice of words, an almost painful care not to hurt the feelings of another or even to seem antagonistic.  It was like a flutter in a dove cote, and yet at the last one elder characterized it as a ‘heated debate.’”

In a decision worthy of Solomon, the congregation agreed to note in the minutes “with what pleasure and benefit the epistle had been received,” and to send a copy to the clerk of the Philadelphia yearly meetings.  And with that small act half a century of bitterness was healed.

It would be another half century before the initial great rift among the Friends would be addressed.

Behind the iron fence of the Meeting House, time seemed to have stood still in 1915 -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The modern views of the Orthodox Gramercy Park congregation was clearly evident by the turn of the century.  On February 20, 1913, a wedding took place; and while the Quaker customs were followed, there was practically no trace of the old Quaker garb.

“From the door to the curb ran a red-striped canvas sidewalk canopy and at 8 o’clock men and women in evening dress began to file in,” reported The Times.  “It was such a gathering as one might see at any evening wedding, groups of kindly old folk, nodding their heads as in benediction, hosts of young people, the girls in pretty evening gowns, and the men in correct evening dress.  In all that congregation only one woman wore the Quaker dress.  Friend Sarah Collins, sitting in the row, facing the meeting, reserved for the ministers, wore the plain Quaker Cap.  Time was when the meeting house was new and the three front rows of seats would have been filled with those clothed soberly in the Quaker gray.  But that was years ago, when many of the older ones there last evening were young girls.”

At mid century the Friends Meeting House was still going strong.   It was home to a non-Quaker, although pacifist, resident in the 1950s.  A large, dark-shelled tortoise somehow found the verdant yard of the meeting house and made his home there.  Meyer Berger wrote on May 9, 1956 that he “has lived on and off the Square for years, though no one seems to know how many.  Gramercy ladies feed him moistened bread and dainties…In winter, near as anyone can make out, he holes up somewhere in the Friends Meeting House in Twentieth Street.  The sexton knows it’s spring when the turtle stirs from somewhere in the hedges, tests the sun and starts moving across the pavement toward the park.”

That same year The Times reported on movement towards the reconciliation between the Orthodox and Hicksite groups—the latter having built a handsome complex of buildings on Rutherford Place and 15^th Street.  “It seems that for the past five years or so, four-man committees from each of the meeting houses have held a series of sessions with a thought to reunion.”

The newspaper did not hold out promise of a speedy reconciliation.  “They are a patient, unhurried people, strangers to rashness and sudden impulse.”

It did note, however, that a reunion could spell the end of the Gramercy Park meeting house.  “If reunion comes, whether in months or years, it seems fairly certain that the old gray meeting house off Gramercy Park will be leased, or sold, and that the two groups will thereafter meet in Fifteenth Street.”

The photographer who took this shot on October 5, 1965, certainly realized that the building was slated for demolition -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

It was nearly a decade before The Times’ prediction came to pass.  On March 29, 1965 a headline read “Quaker Building To Be Razed Here.”   The 106-year old building had been sold to a developer for $500,000 “who intends to build there.”

What he intended to build was a modern apartment building.

When the congregation had moved out six years earlier, the new Landmarks Preservation Commission rushed to designate the structure.  Unfortunately, landmark status in 1965 did not guarantee preservation and the Commission had no legal backing.  Geoffrey Platt, chairman of the commission, used the meeting house to push for the passage of laws.

“The loss of this handsome, unique building is an example of the necessity for the landmarks legislation now pending.”

In the meantime, the Ninth Church of Christ, Scientist was using the building for regular church services.

photo by Alice Lum

Following public outcry at the impending loss of the meeting house, it was purchased from the developer by a foundation hoping to convert it to a performing arts center.  That failed.   It was sold to the United Federation of Teachers, which intended to use if for offices and meeting space.  That failed.

Amazingly, however, the wonderful Italianate structure was saved.  On June 15, 1975 architecture historian and critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote “After a series of vicissitudes, the Brotherhood Synagogue, formerly located on West 13^th Street, and the Friends’ Meeting house, on Gramercy Square, have found each other.  The result is an admirable demonstration of appropriate contemporary reuse of a historic structure through sensitive rehabilitation, and the preservation of a building that is as lovely, architecturally, as it is important to the New York scene.”

Through the turn-overs and grandiose if unworkable ideas, the building had continued to deteriorate from disuse.  Huxtable said “It was structurally sound, but a bad roof and open joints in the solid masonry walls led to leaks and water damage that left the interior ankle-deep in fallen plaster and debris.”

The Synagogue purchased the building for $420,000 then brought in architect James Polshek to renovate and restore it.  Both Polshek and the contractor, Lawrence Held and Son, donated their services.  The sensitive restoration cost around $300,000.  In the words of Huxtable, “The building… meets a universal need to touch base with the past, to savor timeless esthetic excellence, to enjoy an essential and enriching aspect of New York life.  In art and amenity, it is beyond price.”

photo by Alice Lum