Carrère & Hastings' 1906 Hudson Park Library - 68 Leroy Street

 

photo by Beyond My Ken

As a boy in Scotland, Andrew Carnegie found it difficult to find books to read.  In 1902 John Shaw Billings, the Director of the New York Public Library, recalled that the future millionaire had made a vow, “no, perhaps not a vow; it seems unnatural to accuse a Scotchman of a vow—but a promise—that if he ever obtained the means he would establish a public library.”  

On March 12, 1901, Carnegie offered the City of New York a gift of $5.2 million to build free circulating libraries. The condition was that the City would provide the land and maintain the libraries. An agreement was reached and the plans for fifty libraries—thirty of them in Manhattan—were began.

In the summer of 1904 the firm of Carrère & Hastings began work on plans for a two-story brick Carnegie library at 68 Leroy Street.  (The firm was responsible for the masterful marble New York Public Library still rising on Fifth Avenue.)  Construction began in October, the cost of which would be $75,000--or about $2.2 million in today's money.  The site cost the city $44,000--another $1 million today.

image from "Real Estate Owned By The City of New York Used For Public Libraries," 1908 (copyright expired)

The site was adjacent to Hudson Park, a recreational playground opened in 1903 which, ironically, replaced the elegant St. James' Park designed by Carrère & Hastings in 1896.   The library would be known as the Hudson Park Branch.

The formal opening took place on January 24, 1906.  The Sun reported that it "includes an auditorium besides well lighted reading rooms for children and their elders."  Neighbors had been filing in for a week to get their library cards to access the 10,000 volumes on the shelves.

The library was festooned with bunting and flags for the opening.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Libraries served the local communities for a variety of purposes, including lecture spaces.  In November 1907 Kellogg Durland spoke about his recent "experiences and observations" while traveling throughout Russia.  It was a time of upheaval in what the New-York Tribune called "the disturbed country," with revolutionaries determined to overthrow the tsar.   A Settlement worker, Durland's disposition was clearly on the side of the proletariat.  Predicting "the final success of the revolutionary movement," he condemned Nicholas II for having "no intention of giving the people a constitutional government."

The Greenwich Village neighborhood was home to a significant immigrant population and the library was an important resource.  In its 1911 annual report the New York Public Library reported that local boys had formed the Greenwich Village Literary Club here.   "This is a self-governing club.  The boys arrange their own programmes and usually invite the club adviser to contribute a story."

That year an exhibit of a "collection of books covering the school problems of the neighborhood, questions of congestion, foreign population, and sanitary conditions in the homes and in the schools," was staged.

The building also served as the meeting place of the Societa di Mutuo Beneficio fra le Donne Italiane" (the Mutual Benefit Society of Italian Women).  According to the Library report, the group's February 3, 1911 meeting "was for social purposes, and the program for the evening provided recitations in Italian, music, and dancing."

In 1914 the report noted, "That the Library is becoming a social center for the mothers also is shown by at least two gatherings that occurred during [February]."  Dr. Isabelle Barbour had given an illustrated talk on Europe to the Mothers' Club, and on February 27 35 mothers of kindergarten children were entertained.  "Italian songs were sung by one of the kindergarten teachers and an Italian story told by Miss Blumer of the probation class."

The popularity of the branch necessitated its being enlarged in 1920.  The building was extended to the east, with a second entrance on Seventh Avenue South.  

photograph by the author

Among the staff was Marianne Craig Moore, who started as a library assistant in 1921.  Her first book of poetry (published without her permission) was released that year.  Moore lived in the neighborhood, which was not only one of immigrants, but of artists, musicians and writers like herself.  She worked here until 1925, going on to become one of America's most esteemed poets.

Branches like this one were as much as neighborhood social and educational center as a repository for books.  At various times during 1924, for instance, it was the venue for exhibitions of "paintings by A. C. Wagler, drawings and water colors by Edward Hodges, needlework by Italian women of the neighborhood, and puppets and material on puppets, and miniature stages of many countries."

The passage of decades did not dilute the branch's outreach.  In January 1964 a series of five exhibits entitled "Photography Sampler 1964" opened, and on November 5 that year The New York Times reported, "A free puppet show, 'Dragon John,' will be given tomorrow at 4 P. M. at the New York Public Library's Hudson Park Branch."

By 1983 the New York Public Library Early Childhood Resource and Information Center was housed in the building.  On November 4 that year the Daily News explained, "The center is designed to serve the needs of children and parents as well as those who work or study in the fields of child development.  Through workshops, book and the family room, the center provides a natural learning environment that fosters the basic education concept of the parent as the children's first teacher."

Carrère & Hastings' handsome brick library continues to serve its immediate community with exhibitions, events, and, of course, books.  

A Contemporary Speakeasy in the Village - 22 Seventh Avenue South

 

In 1889 William J. Rauch paid $26,500, or about $760,000 in today's money, for the five-story brick apartment house at No. 58 Leroy Street.  There was a store on the ground floor for additional income.  At the time the building sat in the middle of the long block between Bedford and Hudson Streets (Leroy Street changed names at the bend, just west of Rauch's building, to St. Luke's Place.)

But major change would arrive in the neighborhood prior to World War I.  Around 1904 real estate agent Charles C. Hickok began lobbying to have Seventh Avenue, which began at 11th Street, extended south to Varick Street.  Years of pressure paid off an in 1913 the extension began in concert with the construction of the Seventh Avenue subway.  Scores of buildings, including the historic 1840 Bedford Street Methodist Church, were demolished.  

When the project was completed in 1917 a series of triangular plots were left at the intersections of the new avenue and the old, diagonally-running Greenwich Village streets.  A solution was found with the rapidly growing trend to replace horses with automobiles.  A number of gasoline stations were erected on the otherwise nearly unusable sites.

On what was left of the site of Rauch's brick apartment building a tiny gasoline station was erected.  Below the modest building was a large masonry vault to accommodate the gas tanks.

The construction project focused more on the heavy vaults below ground than the shanty-like gas station itself. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

In 1964 the service station was removed to be replaced by a nondescript white brick building three stories tall.  There was one apartment each on the second and third floors.  The plans called for an "eating and drinking establishment" in the cellar and first floor. The architects did not aspire to greatness in the design and saved their client's money by foregoing custom bricks to create clean corners for the angled footprint.  The result was a zipper-like appearance.  The problem of the sharp corner was resolved by a one-story extension that provides outdoor space to the second floor apartment.  Numbered 22 Seventh Avenue South, it also provided entrance to the downstairs club.

It is unclear how much of the old masonry vault was preserved and what was rebuilt; but the subterranean atmosphere was perfect for an intimate, arcane club.  

In 1974 Roswell Rudd opened a "jazz room," with the unexpected name of the St. James Infirmary.  The New York Times columnist John S. Wilson described it on December 4 that year as a "small, low-ceiling, informal basement room" and a "permanent, nightly home for the fascinating mixture of growls, shouts, mutterings and explosions that make up [Rudd's] highly expressive style."

Despite its favorable reviews, the club was gone within a year.  On November 26, 1975 Michael Gross, writing in The New York Times, mentioned the Milk Bar, "the town's most-whispered-about new watering hole."  In his 2016 book New York Rock, Steven Blush recalled that in the 1980's Milk Bar "hosted great late-night depravity."

It survived until 1993, replaced by Le Vingt-Deux, the club that would give the below-ground space its mystery.   In its June 28, 1993 issue, New York magazine wrote, "A beefy bouncer, eyebrows arched, peers through a porthole and selects the clientele.  The worthy proceed down dimly lighted stairs, then onto the main floor.  A brass bar dominates it, and the whole place shimmers with candlelight."  The speak-easy atmosphere was embraced by patrons.  There was no sign on the door, only brass street numbers.

The bouncer sized up prospective patrons through the peephole.  photo by Andy Levin, New York magazine June 28, 1993

Like St. James Infirmary, Le Vigne-Deux would be short-lived.  It was replaced within the year by the Tribal Lounge, which was replaced as quickly by the Nowbar, opened by former child actor Mason Reese.  His doorman named Keith told New York magazine in September 1995, "It's like, you gotta be ready to drink, ready to take stuff off, and able to look good doing it."  The magazine described the space as "a subterranean heaven for budding playboys and super-vixens."

Reese, who lived nearby, got into a bit of trouble in 1996.  On April 10 The New York Times journalist Alex Witchel explained, "Inviting Joey Buttafuoco to Nowbar has resulted in Mr. Reese's being summoned to appear before the State Liquor Authority because Mr. Buttafuoco, an ex-convict, was photographed mixing drinks.  (Ex-convicts are not legally allowed to serve liquor.)"  It was merely a publicity stunt and Buttafuoco never served any drinks, but that would have to be straightened out with authorities.

Sasha Petreaske opened Little Branch in the space in 2005.  He continued the Prohibition Era style allure of the below ground space.  Seth Kugel of The New York Times called it on April 13, 2008 "a faux speakeasy that in this case is identified with nothing more than a subtle plaque affixed to the door."

Once partially filled with gas tanks, the space is a below ground refuge today.  photo by Erinn Springer, New York magazine 

New York magazine more recently wrote, "The bartenders wear suspenders and many of the old speakeasy rules still apply (no talking loudly or misbehaving) at this kind gentle permutation of a speakeasy from the late hallowed drinkslinger Sasha Petraske."

Little Branch preserves the Prohibition Era speakeasy tradition created by Le Vingt-Deux.  There is no signage, a doorman still evaluates the potential patrons, a heavy curtain obscures the staircase leading downward, and the garter-sleeved bartenders are straight from the 1920's.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Lynn Ireland for suggesting this post

William Huyler's 1845 No. 34 Leroy Street

Surprisingly, the historic six-over-six double hung windows date are original to the house.

Like so many others erecting homes in Greenwich Village at the time, master mason William Huyler intended the two story and attic house at No. 34 Leroy Street as an investment project.  Its Greek Revival elements were most likely taken from architectural style books widely available to builders.

Completed in 1845, the 18-feet wide, brick-faced house sat upon a brownstone basement.  The two-step stoop placed the entrance nearly at sidewalk level.  Attractive Greek Revival-style ironwork guarded the basement level and flanked the stoop.  While restrained, the decorative elements of the entrance--Corinthian pilasters and an egg-and-dart framed transom--were handsome touches.   The Greek Revival style had done away with the pitched roof and dormers of the earlier Federal style.  Instead the third floor attic was nearly full-height.

Two years after the house was completed Huyler sold it to another investor, James D. Sherwood.  He was a successful broker, and would acquire three more properties in the immediate area by 1861, including the house next door at No. 36 Leroy Street, which he built in 1853.

Sherwood leased No. 34 to William G. Babb, who remained until 1849.  Babb had previously worked for the city.  On July 13, 1831 he received a promotion from Inspector of Firewood to Street Inspector.  But by the time he moved into the Leroy Street house he had embarked on an exciting new profession.

Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre's invention, the daguerreotype, was introduced in France in 1839 and only recently had made its way to America.  Now portraits could be made relatively quickly.

Babb was listed as a daguerreian in 1847.   It appears that he operated his studio from the Leroy Street house, since no business address was listed until 1849.  That was the year he moved from No. 34 to 51 Leroy Street.

Rinier V. Mooney and his family next rented the house from Sherwood.  Now retired, like Babb he had worked for the City for years.  In 1826 he was listed as an Officer of the Customs, making a salary of $1,874.54 (about $47,000 today) per year.  Raises seem to have come slowly in city government work, for in 1834 his salary had not changed.  Mooney died on December 4, 1863 at the age of 70, and his funeral was held in the house two days later.

Like so many other families in the area, Sherwood's next tenants rented rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Herald on May 8, 1865 offered "A nice suite of parlors on the second floor, with bath and gas, at low figures, for one or two gentlemen, in a private House."  The restriction to "gentlemen" eliminated the possibility of immoral women bringing unwanted problems.

The roomers seem to have come and gone frequently.  The "neatly furnished rooms" were advertised again in December 1866 and again three months later.  Nevertheless, they were respectable, white collar tenants.  In 1871 Charles S. Goodrich, an attorney, was living here, and in 1883 officer worker Charles W. Gregory rented a room, as did another "clerk," Alexander McPhail, in 1888.

The private family who had rented rooms in the house were gone by 1893, when it seems that Sherwood directly leased rooms.  His ad in The Evening World on May 24 that year offered "Furnished or unfurnished single rooms or floor of three rooms and bath; newly painted; very reasonable to desirable parties."

Similar advertisements appeared into the first years of the 20th century.  Following Sherwood's death in 1907, his properties were liquidated by his estate.  Six parcels were sold at auction in January 1908, including No. 34.   Cyrus W. Horton, Jr., purchased it along with Nos. 36 and 38 Leroy Street.  He paid $6,000, or about $161,000 today, for each of the houses.

Horton continued to rent rooms in No. 34.  The neighborhood was, by now, on the edge of New York City's Little Italy and the tenant list reflected the area's new personality.

Living here in 1911 was Gregorio Catalano, whose best friend was Dr. Gaetano Sammarelli.  Sammarelli was described by The New York Times as "a prominent Italian physician."   Both men were, said the newspaper, "well known in Italian circles."

Sammarelli and his sweetheart had been planning their wedding for some time.  Catalano was to be the doctor's best man.  In the meantime, Sammareli's fiancee had asked her best friend, Emma, to be her maid of honor.   Quite unexpectedly to all their friends, the wedding morphed into a double ceremony.  The Times said "The bridesmaid and the best man decided to emulate their best friends, and the affair was looked on as singularly auspicious."   The ceremony took place on July 27, 1911.  But the joy of the day would quickly deteriorate into misery for the brides.

Emma Catalano later said that almost immediately her new husband became cold and cruel.  Three months into the marriage he made her sign a paper which she could not read because it was written in English.  It was a legal agreement to separate and waive all claims other than a $3 per week allowance.

He told her to leave the Leroy Street house according to The Times on August 22, 1912.  "Catalano begged her to leave him, and threatened to burn the house in which they lived unless she abandoned it."

At the same time, things were not going well for the other newlyweds.   In May 1912 Dr. Sammarelli startled his friends by filing suit to annul the marriage.  "The physician alleged that his wife had never loved him and that she had refused to fulfill her marital obligations," said the newspaper.

The brides joined forces in August and hired attorney Alexander Pfeiffer (oddly enough, the same lawyer Sammarelli used).  They filed suit for "cruelty and desertion against their respective husbands and demand[ed] legal separations."

Within the decade No. 34 would return to a single-family home.  John Wilson lived here in 1927 when Arnold, Constable & Co. celebrated its 100th anniversary.  The department store celebrated by mounting an exhibition of more than 1,500 historical items.  Most of the loaned items had to do with early New York history, like the dress worn by Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt's maid of honor in her 1841 wedding.  But John Wilson lent a European relic, described as "a fan presented by Napoleon to Empress Josephine."

In was about this time that the roofline was altered with the stepped parapet.  Considering that no other changes were made to the facade, the sole attempt at modernization is puzzling.

In 1949 the house was purchased by 32-year old photographer, artist and sculptor David Meridith Hare.   By the time he bought No. 34 he had turned almost exclusively to sculpting and was recognized as a force in what would be known as the New York School.   Three years earlier art critic Clement Greenberg had said of him, "Hare stands second to no sculptor of his generation, unless it be David Smith, in potential talent."

Hare hired architect Lowel Brody to add an artist studio at the rear of the Leroy Street house in 1957.  He was now painting as well, "devoting himself to the sort of mythological and legendary subjects that were in keeping with the interests of the Surrealists and Abstract Expressionists," according to The New York Times later.  In 1977 the Guggenheim Museum exhibited a 10-year retrospective of his paintings, sculptures and drawings.

Although Hare relocated to Victor, Idaho in 1985, where he died in 1992; the Leroy Street house remained in the family, occupied by his architect son Morgan Browne Hare.  In 1995 he and partner, Marc Turckel, founded the architectural firm the Leroy Street Studio in the building.  It was joined in 1997 by Shawn Watts, who became a partner in 2005.  The well-known firm continues to operate from the nearly 175-year old house.

photographs by the author

The 1830 Joseph Hammond House - 30 Leroy Street

In the 18th century the importing firm of Jacob Le Roy & Son was highly successful and "well-known,"  The head of the firm was described in court papers later as a "wealthy New York city merchant."  He was honored by the naming of the dusty rural road in Greenwich Village in his honor by 1807.

The population of Greenwich Village surged as New Yorkers fled the devastating cholera epidemic that broke out in New York City in 1825.   Unlike many the businessmen who responded by erecting speculative houses; lumber merchant Joseph Hammond built his brick home at No. 30 Leroy Street for his own occupancy.

Constructed by builder John G. Hadden and carpenter Silvanus Gedney, the handsome residence was completed in 1830.  Faced in Flemish bond brick, it was designed in the newly-emerging Greek Revival style.  The squat attic floor replaced the peaked roof and dormers of the Federal style.  The elegant entrance  included fluted Ionic columns, lacy foliate molding and leaded sidelights.  The transom above the doorway was, no doubt, originally leaded as well.

The metal cornice above the doorway is  late 19th century update.

Hammond was involved in Greenwich Village interests and was an active member of the Odd Fellows lodge at the corner of Grove and Hudson Streets.  He moved almost directly across the street, to No. 25 Leroy Street in 1839, selling No. 30 to John and Bartholomew Van Valkenburgh.  Whether the new owners ever lived in the house is unclear; but it was apparently lost in foreclosure in 1845 when title was transferred to the Canal Bank.

Soon after estate attorney Platt Adams purchased No. 30 in 1852 he rented about half of the house.  An advertisement in The New York Herald on March 9, 1853 offered "To Let--To a small family, the upper part of house, No. 30 Leroy street, consisting of the front and back room, and a large bedroom over the tearoom, on the second floor, one room in the attic, and front basement.  Rent $275."

Tearooms, like the one mentioned in the ad, were most often located in the rear of the first floor, surrounded by windows overlooking the garden.  The $275 rent would be equal to about $735 per month today.

The tenants had left two years later, in February, when the portion of the house was again offered for rent.  His first experience at sharing his home may have been a bit nerve-wracking.  This time Adams added a new restriction, seeking a "small family, without children."

Adams sold No. 30 in 1861 to Gabriel Lilienthal who, interestingly, leased it to George Hammond--apparently the son of the original owner.   Hammond's 44-year old wife, the former Mary Dunn, died in the house on Friday, August 25, 1865.  Her funeral was held in the parlor the following Monday.

The next owner was Henry T. Gratacap, a luggage manufacturer, who purchased the house in 1873.   Gratacap had been a volunteer firefighter in the 1830s and is credited with having designed the leather fire helmet in 1836.  His firm manufactured the helmets until 1868 when he sold that business.

Henry Gratacap is credited with designing the iconic firemen's helmet.  via The National Museum of American History

Like the previous owners, Gratacap leased the house.  His tenant, Allen R. Jollie, had also been a volunteer firefighter.  He joined Engine Company No. 12 in 1826, and then Engine Company No. 29 in 1828 when he moved to Greenwich Village.  George William Sheldon in his 1882 The Story of the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York remembered "Quick and strong, he frequently rolled the machine from the old Watch-house, at Hudson and Christopher Streets, taking it alone on the sidewalk to the first crossing, and waiting for help to get it over the curb-stone."

"Al" Jollie had left the fire department in 1842, but his son Edward continued the tradition as an active member of Hose Company No. 41.

Allen R. Jollie was a well known publisher of music and a manufacturer of musical instruments.  He and his wife, Janet, had nine grown children.

Allen R. Jollie manufactured instruments like this flute, in the collection of the National Music Museum

One of them, Isaac, had served as a first lieutenant with the 38th Infantry during the Civil War.  Following his death at the age of 42 on July 19, 1873, his funeral was held in the Leroy Street house.

Five years later Allen R. Jollie's funeral was held here.  He died on December 17, 1877 at the age of 73.

The family leasing the house from Gratacap in 1887 was named Wheeler.  They receive a scare on the Fourth of July that year when Mr. Wheeler fell ill after eating ice cream.   He was just one of about 80 people sickened, leading to the New-York Tribune's headline: MANY FAMILIES POISONED.

At the time of the article the cause was still under investigation.  One theory was that the dairy product had been allowed to sit too long before being frozen; but another suggested that someone had tampered with the ice cream.  The newspaper reported "But Dr. McIntyre, judging from his own symptoms, had a theory that the trouble was mineral poisoning, and that the poison was arsenic."

By the 1890s Greenwich Village was filling with Italian immigrants, some of whom brought along unwanted criminal traditions.  Detective Sergeant John Antonio Perrazzo "had charge of all the Italian work, and had made several important captures," according to The New York Times.  He and his wife moved into No. 30 Leroy Street.

Perrazzo had joined the force on July 23, 1880.   The 41-year old detective caught a cold on November 17, 1895.  It quickly progressed into pneumonia.  Police Surgeon Cook attended to the officer in the Leroy Street house, but his condition only worsened.  He died five days after becoming ill.

Real estate operators Ennis & Sinnott purchased the house from the estate of Henry T. Gratacap in January 1911.  In reporting the sale the New-York Tribune noted "This is the first sale of the property in thirty-eight years."  The subsequent transfers would be exceedingly more frequent--the title was transferred two more times before the end of the year.

Mary Giannone purchased the house in February 1922 and five years later hired architect Vincent M. Cajano to make major renovations.  He converted the house to a two-family residence and raised the attic to a full floor.   While Cajano made few changes to the lower portion of the facade--even preserving most of the 1830 doorway--the parapet above the new third floor made no apologies for its modernity.

The Giannone family lived in the building for three decades.  In 1939 Matilda Giannone listed it as her address.  She also owned a seven-story tenement and store at No. 190 Bleecker Street a few blocks away.  The Giannones sold it in 1951.

Today No. 30 remains a two-family dwelling.  Although the brownstone basement level has been painted white and gray paint flakes from the brick facade; it takes little imagination to envision the house as it appeared when Joseph Hammond's family moved in nearly 190 years ago.

photographs by the author

The 1831 Jacob Romaine House - 7 Leroy Street

At the time of the American Revolution, Richmond Hill was the large country estate of Major Abraham Mortier, paymaster of the British Army.  The mansion sat at approximately where Varick and Charlton Streets are today, about a mile and a half from New York City.  It was used by Sir Jeffrey Amherst as his headquarters during the French and Indian War.

Following the war, the house briefly became the official residence of the Vice President, John Adams; and in 1797 as the country home of Aaron Burr.  In 1820, John Jacob Astor purchased much of the former Burr estate and laid out streets and building plots.

In 1830, Jacob Romaine began construction of his home at 7 Burton Street, later renamed Leroy Street, on what had been part of the Richmond Hill estate.  Completed a year later, his chubby red brick house was two-and-a-half stories tall with stylish wooden dormers within the peaked roof.  Plain brownstone lintels and sills complimented its clean Federal lines.  Below the stoop a deep basement floor held the kitchen and work areas.

In the 1820s and 1830s, row houses such as Romaine’s were built snugly one against the other, fully encircling the block. Within the circle of homes were rear lots that often held stables, workshops or smaller dwellings with no means of access other than “horse walks.”

Jacob Romaine included such a horse walk in his house – a plain wooden door opening to a passageway into the rear yard, above which was a small four-paned window.  Behind the main residence was a small house.

In 1841, when Romaine sold 7 Leroy Street to Jacob J. Moore, there were already four families living in the house, the men of the households being carters or draymen.   Just before the Civil War, in 1860, there were 12 occupants in the main house, and a washerwoman and her sister within the back house.

Louis Clark lived here on August 19, 1863 when he was inducted into the Union Army.  The following day the name of another tenant, Joseph Bernarde, was drawn.  If R. Donaldson thought he had dodged a bullet, he was mistaken.  His name was drawn on March 16, 1865, and the next day yet another residence, A. Ellicott, was drafted.

The house was purchased in 1865 by Cornelius J. Van Saun.  His family would retain ownership through until 1911.  Following a fire in 1893, renovations were made that included the installation of a store to the basement level.

The tenants at the turn of the century included Henry Kingsley, a 49-year-old lamplighter, and 44-year-old Josephine Hutchinson, who earned a living as a buttonhole maker.  Among those living in the rear building was Hugh Mack who described his occupation as "junkman."

Summer was a particularly dangerous time in the city for the young and the elderly.  While wealthy families escaped the stifling heat at seaside resorts, working class families suffered.   Such was the case for the Dunn family.  On July 18, 1902, their one-year-old son Arthur died in the house, and almost exactly a year later, on July 3, six-year-old Theodore Dunn perished.

There were three families living in the main house by 1906.  On December 17, 1911. The New York Times reported that, after having owned the property for more than 45 years, the Cornelius Van Saun family sold No. 7 to Antone Contino "for investment."  It was a short-lived investment.  Before the end of the year the title was transferred to Thomas O'Brien, and then to Marguerite M. Trail.

Alberto Barratta purchased the house in 1922 and returned it to a single-family residence in 1924 (although the store remained).  The basement was home to a Chinese laundry in the 1940s, while the main house was occupied by Broadway theater director Brobury Ellis and stage manager Randolph Echols.

At mid-century, 7 Leroy Street was home to Dr. Robert Chambers, who had held the post of Research Professor of Biology at New York University from 1928 to 1948.  His wife, the former Bertha Smith, died in 1946.  He married again, but this union, to Karen Peterfy, ended in divorce in 1953.

Undaunted, the 74-year old scientist found love again the following year.  He and 73-year-old Eloise Parkhurst Huguenin obtained their marriage license on November 29, 1954.

The property was purchased by William "Will" Steven Armstrong and his wife, Jo, in 1964.  A stage designer, he used his talents to transform the rear building into their home, which he called his "Venetian Fantasy."  The little building that housed a junkman at the turn of the century was now stuccoed and painted pink with green tile insets.  Armstrong told a reporter "When one can bring one's life and work together in a house, that's how an artist can function best."

Armstrong had won an Obie award in 1958 for his designs for Ivanov, and a Tony award in 1962 for Carnival.  Critic Brooks Atkinson had given Armstrong strong praise for his 1959 Lysistrata at the Phoenix Theater, and the following year said that his unorthodox stage design for Caligula, "thrusts Caligula's horrors in the faces of the audiences."

Armstrong's "Venetian fantasy" survives in the rear yard.  photo via Streeteasy .com

While on vacation in Mexico on August 12, 1969 the 39-year-old Will Steven Armstrong died.

Throughout its 200-year existence, the main house has survived little altered.  Today the white frame dormers are crisp and while the façade is, perhaps, a little less straight than it was in 1831, no major changes have occurred.  The fine Federal doorway with its flanking wooden pillars and narrow transom survives intact.  There are now one apartment on each floor.

Jacob Romaine’s two-and-a-half story residence is a charming survivor of the time when Greenwich Village was experiencing a population explosion and corresponding building boom.

photographs by the author

The 1831 Matthew Anderson House - 9 Leroy Street

The garage door marks the site of a passageway, or horsewalk, that originally provided access to the rear yard.

The Le Roy family (variously spelled Leroy and LeRoy) was highly regarded in commercial circles.  Jacob Le Roy was born in 1726 in New York, described nearly a century later in court papers as a "wealthy New York city merchant, head of firm Jacob Le Roy & Sons."  Jacob died in 1793 but his firm continued doing business until about 1859.
 
His son, Herman, was a founder and president of the Bank of New York.  He resigned that position in 1804 to found Le Roy, Bayard & Co. described by historian Louis N. Geldert in 1906 as at the time "the most important commercial establishment in the United States."

Leroy Street in Greenwich Village was named in honor of Jacob Le Roy.  The 1820s and '30s saw a flurry of construction on the street, joined in 1830 by Matthew Anderson who began construction on a two-and-a-half story house at No. 9, just west of Bleecker Street.

Completed in 1831 the Federal-style home was faced in Flemish bond brick.  Its surprising 28-feet breadth made it noticeably wider than its neighbors.  Dormers would have punched through the peaked roof.  To the right of the stoop a narrow doorway opened to a horsewalk--a tunnel of sorts that providing access to the small stable in the rear yard.

Whether Anderson actually lived in the house is unclear.  In 1849 he sold it to investor James D. Sherwood who soon made his confidence in the immediate neighborhood evident.  By 1861 he would erect two houses on the same block and another around the corner on Bedford Street.

Sherwood leased No. 9.  In 1860 his tenants were the young couple John F. and Mary E. Bacon.  The house was the scene of a heartbreaking funeral after Mary, just 23 years old, died on Sunday July 22 that year.

By 1865, when New York's workforce returned from war, Sherwood was renting rooms in the house to blue collar tenants.   Among them was "cartman" (today's truck driver or delivery man) H. D. Barrett who also volunteered ad the Phoenix Hook and Ladder Company No. 3 on Amity Street (later renamed West 3rd Street); and cartman Robert R. Carpenter.

Carpenter, who would remain in the house for many years, was a colorful character.  Not content to quietly complete his job, perhaps stop by a saloon for an ale, and retire to his rooms, he as visible in area interests.   On voting day in 1865 he was an "inspector of elections for the Fourth District," for example.

Robert R. Carpenter's name appeared in newspapers as far away as Illinois in 1872 when the cartman stood up to the massive Mutual Life Insurance Company.  That a man of Carpenter's financial and social station would have a life insurance policy at all in 1872 is surprising and a further hint at his intellect and personality.  When the trustees of Mutual Life decided to offer reduced premiums in order to attract new business--yet keep the existing policies at the same cost--Carpenter was outraged.

He joined other policy holders in demanding that the firm correct its "conduct of affairs."  The Chicago newspaper The Chronicle reported on December 12, 1872 that they felt the new strategy was "unjust to existing policy-holders and prejudicial to their rights and interests, and deserving our unqualified disapproval."

The Financial Panic of 1873 was called The Great Depression until the 1929 Stock Market crash appropriated the title.   On March 13, 1874 the New York Herald dedicated nearly a full page to report on the relief efforts by various charitable organizations.  "The continued cold weather has had its influence on the hungry and destitute population of the city," it wrote, and noted among the many examples of aid that the St. John's Guild had so far fed and clothed 30,000 people.  On the list of volunteers who delivered packages of clothing to the needy was Robert R. Carpenter.

Carpenter was still living at No. 9 Leroy Street when another truckman, John R. Hallock was listed there.  Rather interestingly, the family of Allen R. Jollie, Jr. had moved in by 1879.  Jollie's parents had lived just down the block at No. 30 Leroy for several years. 

The Jollie's daughter, Jeanette, was teaching in the primary department of Grammar School No. 38 on Clarke Street near Broome Street by 1879.  That year they shared the house with glass merchant James H. Reed, Jr., whose business was downtown at No. 54 Barclay Street.

The residents of No. 9 were somewhat inconvenienced the following year when James D. Sherwood hired builder Charles E. Hadden to enlarge the house by raising the attic floor to a full story.  A fashionable neo-Grec cornice trimmed the now-flat roof.

Allen R. Jollie's elderly sister-in-law, Frances P. Gregory, seems to have moved in with the family by now.  She had earlier lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband, Ormond H. Gregory, who died in 1867.  The 70-year old widow died on February 25, 1880 and her funeral was held in the Leroy Street house the following evening.

James D. Sherwood retained possession of the house until his death in 1907.  The following year his estate sold it to Elizabeth A. French.  She soon converted it to a tenement that housed six families.  By now the neighborhood had mostly filled with immigrant families.

The influx of foreigners was disturbing to author Thomas W. Salmon who, in his 1913 essay "Immigration and the Mixture of Races in Relation to the Mental Health of the Nation" reminded readers "the races which colonized this country were closely akin."  Sounding eerily like some current day protestors he used the term "invasion," and warned "The new immigration to the United States has resulted in the introduction of more than 10,000,000 representatives of new races in less than twenty years."

Salmon took the time to carefully list the "Marriages Between Those Living in the Same House" which involved immigrant couples.  What exactly his point was is uncertain; but he noted that 27-year year old Peter Selinske "of 9 Leroy Street" had married 21-year old Helen Caddle on November 12, 1912.

The house was purchased by Giuseppe and Francesa Paccione in 1920.  Before long they made improvements, adding a rear addition for bathrooms, for example.  Sometime in the 1930s they enlarged the former horsewalk into a garage-door sized access to the rear yard.  The stable was converted to a five-car garage in 1957.

The Paccione family retained possession of the property for decades.  In 1990 it was converted to two residences--an apartment on the parlor floor and a sprawling duplex above.  Its unusual width, which at first blush makes it appear to be two altered and joined residences, no doubt drew much attention along the block in the 1830s.

photograph by the author

The 1830s House at No. 16 Leroy Street

In the 1820s and '30s, nearly three quarters of a century before quiet Leroy Street in Greenwich Village would see the invasion of tenement buildings, quaint brick-faced homes were being built here.  No. 16 was among them—one of a string of identical, speculative Greek Revival houses built for the working middle class. 

Like its neighbors, the two-story house sat above a shallow stone-clad English basement.  A simple iron fence ran the length of the row, decorated with anthemions.  The houses reflected the newly-popular Greek Revival style, foregoing the dormered attics in favor of flat roofs.  Small attic windows were punched into the wide wooden faschia boards.

No. 16’s doorway would be a clone of the others—a paneled door framed by pilasters and sidelights.  A copious overlight allowed sunlight to illuminate the entrance hall.

Completed around 1830, it would become home to respectable, working class families.  Amy E. Hallock lived here in the 1850s.  She earned a salary of $200 per year as a teacher in Primary School No. 8 nearby at No. 61 Thompson Street.  Amy’s yearly income would amount to about $5,200 today.

The Hallock family lived here at least through 1858; but in 1860 the house was home to Derrick L. Coles, his wife Ann, and their year-old baby Mary Ellis.  Later that year when Coles’s 64-year old mother, Maria, died on Tuesday, December 18; he had her body brought to the Leroy Street house for the funeral held two days later.

Another heart-wrenching funeral would take place in the parlor four months later.  Little Mary Ellis died on Monday April 15, 1861.  The following day friends and relatives assembled in the Leroy Street house for the noon ceremony.

At the time of Mary Ellis’s funeral the family of policeman Harman Lefferts was living nearby at No. 41 Commerce Street.  Lefferts worked for the City, earning $547.50 a year (about $15,000 today) as a “night inspector.” 

By 1866 Harman, his wife Gertrude, and their adult son had moved into No. 16 Leroy Street.  G. W. Lefferts listed his occupation as “clerk” that year.  He was also a firefighter with the Amity Hose Company No. 38.

In March 1870 Gertrude became ill.  Her condition quickly worsened and she never recovered.  She died on Friday, April 1.  Once again the doorway was draped in black as mourners filed into the house on Sunday, April 3 at 1:00 for Gertrude’s funeral.

By now Harman had been promoted from “night inspector” to patrolman.  In 1880 he was promoted again to detective.  The New York Times said he “had often distinguished himself by his bravery, and whose capacity for judging of character was known.”  His “capacity for judging character” would be tested in January 1881.

William H. Randolph, alias Perry Wright, was a polished con-man whose father was a clock and watch repairer.  He had, therefore, gained a more-than-average knowledge of the workings of timepieces.  Randolph concocted a scheme by which he would loiter around high-end stores selling clocks and watches; make note of the purchaser of a timepiece; and manage to get one or two of the business cards from employees of the store.

After a few days, Randolph would visit the home of the purchaser, present the business card, and explain that the retailer wanted to make sure that the watch or clock was operating perfectly.  “He said the firm never permitted a defective article to leave them, and that he was sent to take the watch or clock back if there was anything the matter with it,” reported The New York Times on January 29, 1881.

Not unexpectedly, Randolph always found something wrong.  He then explained to the purchaser that he could take the timepiece back to be regulated, or it could be exchanged for another.  “In almost every instance the swindler, besides carrying away the clock or watch, took also the thanks of the purchaser to the tradesman for his honest dealings and the pains he took to make his customers satisfied,” said the newspaper.  Randolph would leave with the expensive clock or watch and the swindled buyer would not be suspicious for several days.

Harman Lefferts was given a description of the crook and the task of finding him.  The rookie detective checked shops for newly-pawned clocks and watches and matched the description with a 43-year old man who often lodged at the Rapid Transit Hotel on the Bowery.  Within 24 hours of receiving his assignment, Lefferts nabbed Randolph by staking out the hotel and grabbing him when he entered.  The New York Times praised Lefferts, saying he had “far successes in his task.”

Lefferts and his son were still living at No. 16 Leroy Street in 1885.  And G. W. Lefferts was still a member of the Amity Hose Company—now part of the organized and professional New York City Fire Department.

But as the turn of the century approached Leroy Street had changed.  Many of the residences had been converted to rooming houses and so it was with No. 16.  On March 11, 1895 an advertisement in The Evening World offered “Large & small front rooms, with board; American family” in the house.

Not long before this the owners made a half-hearted attempt to update the residence.  A neo-classical pediment was installed over the doorway.  At some point the Greek Revival fascia board was removed.

The owners did not make the effort to alter the handsome doorway nor the original ironwork, but stuck a pediment over the entrance to give an updated look.

Among the boarders was the family of Robert T. Knipe.  He was Chairman of Trustees of the Seventh Avenue United Presbyterian Church at Nos. 27-35 Seventh Avenue.  Daughter Mary was a teacher in the Primary Department of Grammar School No. 42 at No. 30 Allen Street.  The Knipes would stay on in the house for several years.

Throughout the 20^th century No. 16 Leroy Street saw little change.  It made the transition from rooming house to apartment house and other than an ill-advised coat of paint and two air conditioning units poking through the brick façade; looks much as it did when the Mary Knipe left every day in 1898 to teach school.

 photos by the author

A Nest of Spies -- No. 20 Leroy Street

As Greenwich Village experienced a building and population boom in the 1830s, a row of speculative Greek Revival homes were constructed on Leroy Street (occasionally, at the time, written as “Le Roy”) between Bleecker and Bedford Streets.  Stretching from No. 12 to No. 30, they were architecturally up-to-the-minute.  In place of the peaked and dormered roof of the Federal style; the attics here were flat-roofed with small windows cut into the frieze-like fascia board.  Clad in warm, orange-toned brick laid in Flemish bond, they sat on brownstone English basements.  The doorways were deeply recessed and simple iron fencing crowned with anthemions protected the basements.

Among these was No. 20 Leroy Street which was home to the Peter W. Lent family by the mid 1850s.  Now middle-aged, Lent and his wife Catherine had four grown children: sons, Abraham, William and John, and a daughter, Susannah.

Susannah had married John H. Dibble and the couple moved to Santa Clara, California.  The family’s New York-Santa Clara connection was apparently strong.  In 1858 Emma C. Hetty was living in Santa Clara when she frantically tried to find her brother, a sea captain, who had been missing for almost a decade.  She relied on Peter Lent’s son, John, to help in the search.

An advertisement in the New-York Daily Tribune on August 18 that year read “Information Wanted –of Robert S. Parker of New-York City.  She last heard of him in September, 1849.  He was about to sail Captain of the ship Phocion, from New-Bedford for China.  Any information concerning him will be thankfully received by his sister, Emma C. Hetty, Santa Clara California, or John D. Lent, No. 20 Leroy st., New-York City.”

John earned his living as a butcher at the time, and volunteered as a fireman with the Knickerbocker Hose Co. No. 2 at No. 5 Duane Street.  His brother, Abraham was a local politician, serving as alderman.

Susannah died in California on January 23, 1860 in California and six years later almost to the day, on Thursday January 25, 1866 Peter W. Lent died in the Leroy Street house at the age of 80.  His funeral was held in the parlor at 2:00 on the afternoon the following Sunday.

By 1869, possibly through his brother’s influence, John D. Lent had given up his job as a butcher and was working as a “messenger” for the City’s Department of Survey and Inspection of Buildings.  That same year, on December 2, Catherine died at the age of 78.  Her three sons held her funeral in the house three days later.

John retained his position with the Fire Department even as his career with the City advanced.  In 1872 he was earning a comfortable $83.33 a month (about $1500 today) as a Special Inspector and notice server.  Nine years later he held the position of “Subpoena Clerk” with an annual salary of $1311.20.

The simple but elegant ironwork survives after nearly 185 years.

All the while he lived on in the family house on Leroy Street, until his death in December 1894.  Lent was still active with the fire department at the time of his death and on December 27, 1894 Robert B. Nooney, President of the Association of Exempt Firemen announced that “Members of this association are hereby notified to meet at 20 Leroy st., this Thursday at 3 o’clock P.M., to pay the last tribute of respect to our deceased member, John D. Lent.”

The Lent family retained ownership of the house; but leased it as a boarding house.  Before long it was subject to neglect and abuse.  Somewhat ironically, in 1903 the Department of Buildings, for whom John Lent had worked as an inspector for so many years, declared the house an “unsafe building.”

The necessary repairs were made to the house and it continued to be run as a boarding house.  By now the Greek Revival entrance had been removed in favor of updated double doors and enlarged transom.

In 1915 as the “European War” raged across the Atlantic, the Greenwich Village neighborhood was filled with Italian and German immigrants.  The boarding house on Leroy Street was run by Mrs.Kane.  Among the residents that spring were Germans Adolph Mittelacher; Curt Thummel; Gustav Stahl, a 27-year old German Army reservist; and his roommate Hans Hardenburg.  Another German boarder, Josephine Weir, was later identified as Stahl’s “sweetheart.”

Also living in the house was the 25-year old John Neil Leach, a British citizen.  The son of a judge in Jamaica, Leach spoke German fluently and conversed with the German boarders.  He was employed as First Cabin Steward on the RMS Lusitania.

Few Americans paid serious notice to an obscure advertisement that appeared in the Des Moines Register on April 22, 1915:

NOTICE! Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given  by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.  IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY WASHINGTON, D.C.

Above the notice was a sketch of the Lusitania and her schedule.

What John Leach did not realize was that he was surrounded by German espionage agents at No. 20 Leroy Street.  On April 30, 1915, the night before the RMS Lusitania left New York, he asked Gustav Stahl to help him take his luggage aboard the ship.  It would be Leach’s last voyage.  On May 7 a German U-Boat torpedoed and sank the ocean liner.

Gustav Stahl signed sworn statements saying that the Lusitania was armed.  He told the German Embassy that when he went aboard with Leach, “I saw two guns of twelve to fifteen centimeters.  They were covered with leather, but the barrel was distinctly to be seen.”  He testified that he looked under the covers and was able to ascertain the caliber and “that the guns were mounted on deck on wooden blocks.”

Josephine Weir chimed in, swearing that when she asked Leach about the danger of sailing on the Lusitania, he said “Oh, I am not afraid.  We have four big brightly polished copper guns.”

The affidavits were supplied by the Embassy to the U.S. State Department in response to President Wilson’s denouncement of the act.

The German agents would not remain long on Leroy Street.  Within a month Stahl was exposed as an employee of the German Government and was wanted for perjury.  By June 10 Hans Hardenburg had been arrested in Cincinnati but Stahle had “disappeared almost completely,” said The Sun.

Gustav Stahl was found and on June 19 was indicted for perjury by a Grand Jury.

The peace of normally-quiet Leroy Street was broken for weeks as reporters and investigators swarmed No. 20, the unimposing brick house that had become a nest of spies.

The Lent Estate retained possession of the residence until May 21, 1921 when it was sold to Mrs. E. De Rosa.  She turned it over three weeks later, selling it to E. De Stilo and A. Di Lonardo.

Never again would No. 20 bring attention to Leroy Street.  It slipped quietly back into the fabric of the neighborhood.  Today it has changed little from the turn of the century, successfully hiding its shocking role in the sinking of a ship that drew the country into World War.

photographs taken by the author