The 1903 Alabama Hotel - 13-15 East 11th Street

 

When Leopold Wertheim purchased the "old buildings" at 13 and 15 East 11th Street in April 1902, he was already erecting an apartment building, The Van Rensselaer, on the site of two other vintage structures next door at 17 and 19 East 11th Street.  In reporting on the recent sale, the Record & Guide commented, "A 9-story apartment building will be erected on the plot."

As it rose, the Van Rensselaer had been leased to the Municipal Realty Company.  Now, according to the New-York Tribune, "arrangements are being perfected for the leasing to the corporation of Nos. 13 and 15 East Eleventh-st., and making the two hotels one."

Despite those negotiations, architect Louis Korn made no attempt to meld the designs of the two structures.  The 45-foot-wide Alabama Hotel would be clad in red brick above a two-story, rusticated limestone base.  Its Italian Renaissance Revival design featured a Palladio-inspired portico with free-standing Ionic columns, wreath framed openings and swirling carved ribbons and bellflowers.  The entrance sat within an intricately carved frame.

Korn visually divided the six-story midsection in two parts by lavishing the openings of the third through fifth floors with quoins, elaborate keystones and carvings.  Each of the more sedate sixth through eighth floors grew less ornamented, with molded lintels and scrolled keystones at the sixth, bracketed sills at the seventh, and prim stone frames at the eighth.  A full-wide stone balcony fronted the top floor.  The structure cost Wertheim the equivalent of $5.36 million to construct by 2023 terms.

The Hotel Alabama opened as an "apartment hotel" in 1903. "Elegantly furnished apartments with private bath" rented for $25 per week, if the guest took two meals per day, or $15 if they needed only one.  The rent would translate to about $800 per week for the more expensive today.

Henry Gregory Granger lived here in 1905.  Described by the New-York Tribune as "a United States consular agent in Colombia," on November 9 the newspaper said, "Granger is a Princeton graduate and was an athlete when in college...He has just returned from Colombia, where he has extensive mining and agricultural interests."

The previous year, Charles O. Brewster had been a poll watcher at 27 Chrystie Street.  Poll watchers were hired by candidates to ensure there was no tampering with the election process.  Brewster "was sandbagged while on duty there," said the New-York Tribune, noting "One of the worst districts in the city for watchers, who are not in sympathy with Tammany Hall is the 6th Assembly, of which 'Little Tim' Sullivan is the leader."  Brewster said he would return this year "if he could have two husky men to back him up."  

One of them was Henry Gregory Granger.  At six-foot, two-inches tall and 215 pounds, he and his brother N. N. Granger, who was also an athlete, accompanied Brewster to the Chrystie Street polling site.  It did not go well.

On November 9, 1905, the New-York Tribune wrote that Henry G. Granger, "is lying in his apartments at the Hotel Alabama, No. 15 East 11th-st., a sadly battered wreck."  The article said that while standing in front of the polling station, "he was knocked down with a blackjack and kicked in the face until he became insensible."  Granger told police "that the brutal attack was instigated by State Senator John G. Fitzgerald, who succeeded 'Big Tim' Sullivan."  

In March 1906, May Kay took a suite in the Hotel Alabama.  The Sun described her as "a very good looking young woman, who had plenty of fine clothes and jewelry and appeared to be well supplied with money."  May's husband had died three years earlier.  A broker in New Orleans, he left her substantial property in New York and Cincinnati.  She additionally received $150,000 in liquid assets (more than $4.5 million today).

The young widow entrusted a former schoolmate with the administration of her affairs, giving him complete power of attorney.  Another friend confidentially said he "had reason to suspect that there had been a love affair between Mrs. Kay and the young man."  She received a letter early in 1906 that read:

My Darling Dear.  Am leaving but against my wishes.  If you love me, please wait until my return.  I simply cannot give you up.  Yours sincerely, Bill.

May did not wait, but followed him to New York.  It is unclear if she ever found him.  Whether she did or not, she was "the source of a good deal of uneasiness to the hotel management," said The Sun on March 30.  "She was in a highly nervous state and had announced on several occasions that she was going to commit suicide."  Two nights before that article Dr. P. E. Bush, who had been treating her, remained in her apartment until 3:00 in the morning, "arguing with her about the foolishness of taking her life."  She promised him, finally, that she would not.

But early on the evening of March 29, May telephoned the desk, telling the Gregor Krischbaum, "Come quickly to my room.  I've shot myself."  The clerk made rapid-fire calls to Dr. Travell who lived down the block, then the police, and then an ambulance.  (Krischbaum later told investigators that May had had "a long telephone conversation over the telephone with a man," shortly before shooting herself.)

When Dr. Travell arrived, May told him, "I want to die, and I am sorry to bother you.  I don't wish you to go to any trouble.  Just leave me alone.  I will be glad when it is all over."  As Travell looked around for the weapon, she directed, "You'll find it over there in the corner.  I threw it behind a portiere."  The Sun reported, "A fancy little revolver was where she said it was."  May Kay had attempted to shoot herself in the heart, but missed.

Blanche Turner Dennis's story was strikingly similar to May Kay's.  Born in the South, she had been married to Confederate Major Hugh C. Dennis, who later became president of the Rialto Grain and Securities Company of St. Louis.  He died about six months after May's husband.  The Sun described Blanche almost exactly as it did May Kay.  "She had plenty of clothes and some jewelry and was apparently always in funds."  She had taken a suite at the Hotel Alabama a few months before May Kay arrived.

The Sun said, "Mrs. Dennis occupied a suite of three rooms, which were tastefully furnished and contained many pieces of bric-a-brac and paintings which she bought from time to time to decorate the rooms."  She had only one caller, a man of about 50 years of age.  Blanche Dennis's story was as tragic as May Kay's.  She had been hiding a pregnancy and died on March 29, the same day May shot herself, of "blood poisoning following a criminal operation presumably performed by herself," as reported by The Sun.

The negotiations to combine the Van Rensselaer and The Alabama had fallen through in 1902.  Now in 1906, J. C. Lawrence, the proprietor of the Van Rensselaer, acquired The Alabama.  While they continued to be operated as separate entities, they were now under the same management.  An advertisement on September 19, 1909 was titled, "In the Midst of Aristocracy are the Alabama - Van Rensselaer Hotels."  The "permanent rentals" ranged from $30 to $200 monthly, an extravagant $6,150 today for the most expensive.

On January 16, 1908, Detroit newspaper man James L. Long, checked into the Hotel Alabama.  The New-York Tribune said, "He seemed to have plenty 0f money and spent it freely."  The following morning a young woman, Carrie O'Neill, applied for a job as a maid and was hired.  A week later, on January 23, the she was seen coming from Long's room by a porter who notified the management.  The New-York Tribune reported, "When asked about the incident Long became indignant, and, handing his key to the clerk, moved out, bag and baggage.  Carrie O'Neil was summarily dismissed and also left the hotel."

At the time of the unpleasant confrontations, two residents Mrs. Harold B. Miller and Mrs. M. R. Gibbs were both at dinner.  When they returned to their rooms, they found them ransacked.  The burglars had overlooked $5,000 in jewels in Mrs. Miller's apartment.  Acting on a hunch, police went to the Hotel Breslin where Long had had his trunk forwarded.  They broke in his door and found him and Carrie O'Neil together.  The detectives also found the "valuable gowns" of Miller and Gibbs there.  Police believed they had solved the string of mysterious hotel robberies that had began weeks earlier.

A resident was the victim of a more bizarre robbery on January 17, 1909.  The Sun began its article saying, "A queer story was turned out at Headquarters last night of a robbery whose victim was a woman known to the police only as Miss Simmons of the Hotel Alabama."  That afternoon, she told investigators, she was out walking when she met an acquaintance she had not seen in some time.  The article said, "The two walked together until it began to storm...The man suggested that they go into a café and wait until he could summon a cab."

While seated at a table, he asked to see the diamond pin, valued at $400, she was wearing.  "The man suddenly excused himself and went out.  Miss Simmons says she asked for her pin, but he did not stop."  The story became stranger when Miss Simmons received a telephone call the following morning from the friend, who said he would be at the Alabama in a few moments.  She waited, but a different man showed up, said he was a secret service detective, and could help her recover her jewelry.  The astute Miss Simmons asked him to please come back later that afternoon.  Then, when a man approached the desk and asked for Miss Simmons, detectives were waiting to arrest him.

The Sun reported that Don P. Collins had a shield in his coat pocket presumably from the Secret Service Society of the United States.  He told the detectives he had called on Miss Simmons "to see if he could get the job of getting back her pine, as he had heard of the robbery."  Miss Simmons identified him as a man she had seen at the café when her "friend" had stolen her pin.  He was held as a suspicious person.

After James E. Knott, head of the Knott Corporation, purchased the two hotels around 1912, he listed them together as the Hotel Van Rensselaer.  An advertisement that year called it "The finest hotel below Fourteenth Street," and offered, "To rent by the week, month, season or year, at very attractive rentals."  The rents started at $15 including meals.  The advertisement noted "Cuisine of the highest standing at moderate rates.  Table d'hote breakfast."

Despite the changing neighborhood in the post World War I years, the hotel continued to house respectable residents.  Among them was Theodore L. Waugh, who was appointed Assistant District Attorney in September 1918.

Four decades after his father had purchased the buildings, in October 1950, David H. Knott sold the property to Nathan Wilson.  The New York Times reported, "A condition of the sale was that Mr. Knott and his family will continue to have their city home on the property."  The article noted, "Mr. Wilson plans to alter the apartment building into smaller suites."  Still, the renovations did not combine the two buildings internally.

Living in one of those smaller suites in 1970 was 18-year-old Cheryl Sharpton.  She was one of five arrested on October 9 that year for armed bank robbery.  Two days earlier two teenaged girls had attempted to hold up the main office of the Dry Dock Savings Bank at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, but failed.  They implicated the other three including Sharpton, the oldest of them being 21 years old.  Police said they had netted about $32,500 in bank robberies since July 6.

A more respectable resident at the time was Ida Rauh Eastman.  Born in 1877, she was a founder of the historic Provincetown Players and an ardent feminist.  A sculptor, poet, painter and actress, she had been known as the "Duse of Macdougal Street" (where the Provincetown Theater was located), and directed the first production of Eugene O'Neill's Where the Cross is Made.  

Rauh (she preferred to be known by her maiden name), had been active within Margaret Sanger's birth-control campaigns and was arrested in 1916 for distributing birth-control pamphlets.  Her bust of close friend D. H. Lawrence is now housed in the Lawrence Memorial Library in New Mexico.  The 92-year-old died in her apartment here on February 28, 1970.

The Alabama and the Van Rensselaer were joined by a common lobby in 1984.

In 1984 the two structures were internally connected at the lobby level, the apartments renovated, and shortly thereafter converted to a cooperative.  Then, on February 6, 1998, The New York Times reported, "In a novel transaction, a majority of the 94 apartment owners in a two-building, 114-unit cooperative in Greenwich Village have individually sold their apartments to Yeshiva University, which will turn them into housing for students at its nearby Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law."  The university had spent $11.6 million for 93 of the studio and one-bedroom units.  It now put another $2 million in to renovations and repairs.

The buildings were renovated again in 2016-17.  They now provided furnished, off-campus housing for New York University, the New School, and the Cardozo School of Law.   Just three years later the newly-organized Alabama Flats purchased the combined properties, while still offering the apartments to students.  

photo by Anthony Bellov

Now called The Alabama, the name was chiseled into the entablature of the portico and a tongue-in-cheek portrait keystone--certain to have caused shudders to Louis Korn--was placed in its arch.

photographs by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for prompting this post.

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

A Real West Side Story - the 1896 Flats at 347 West 37th Street

 

In the 1890's architect Louis Korn was busy designing numerous office and loft buildings in the Lower Fifth Avenue district.  But early in 1895 he took on a much different project.

The crime-ridden Hell's Kitchen neighborhood stretched approximately from 34th to 59th Street, and from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River.  The New York Times called the area “one of the most miserable and crime-polluted neighborhoods in this City” and said “there is more disease, crime, squalor, and vice to the square inch in this part of New-York.”  

For years a three-story tenement had stood at 347 West 37th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.  Its tenants, like everyone else on the block, were Black.  Racial tensions among the impoverished residents of Hell's Kitchen ran high and Blacks were unofficially restricted from passing west of Ninth Avenue.  The 25-foot-wide tenement was sold in February 1895 and within a month developer John D. Karst, Jr., had hired Louis Korn to design a replacement.  

Korn's plans called for a five-story "brick and stone flat."  The cost of construction would be more than $635,000 today, but Karst most likely felt it was a solid investment.   Following a violent conflict between Black and white gangs in September 1897, a property owner told a reporter "The negroes pay their rents regularly, and many of the whites do not."

The completed building was designed in a quirky take on  the Renaissance Revival style.  The stone newels of the solid stone wing walls of the short stoop held squat cast iron lampposts.  The double-doored entrance was framed by paneled pilasters and an entablature upheld by graceful scrolled brackets.  Panels of undressed stone separated the openings of the upper floors.  The heavy lentils were decorated with delicate carvings and small, leafy brackets.  A pressed copper cornice ran along the roofline.

The apartments had either three or four rooms.  The modern building, however, did not necessarily improve the conduct of its tenants.  Among the first to move in was Maggie Faulks, who lived on the top floor.  Wilhelmina Henricks, the building's housekeeper, lived downstairs.  The women devised a means to make extra money.

On December 31, 1896 the New York Journal ran a front page article about a "school for thieves" being run by Black women.  A 14-year-old boy, Jacob Poore, had been caught trying to carry a rocking chair from the store of McClain, Simpson & Co. on 37th Street.  Furniture dealers often displayed samples on the sidewalk and for weeks Poore had loitered around stores, waiting for a chance to walk off with "chairs of all kinds, foot stools, pictures, and house ornaments," according to The Evening Telegram.

The women paid the boy for his plunder.  He told investigators, for instance, that Wilhelmina had paid him 60 cents for a $7 rocking chair and Maggie paid 50 cents for a $4 rug.  The women were arrested on charges of receiving stolen property.  Both insisted they had no idea the goods were stolen.

Another of the initial tenants was Charles N. Gloucester.  The young man was attempting to improve his lot.  While almost all of the other male residents were laborers, he was working as a law clerk.  But on March 15, 1896 he was sentenced to six months in the penitentiary for petty larceny.  "The crime charged against Gloucester," said The Evening Post, "was that on December 4, he called at the residence of Mrs. Emily Griswall...and stole a water pitcher."

There was one tenant who was not Black--"a little, undersized Mexican, rejoicing in the name of Carlos Castrono," as described by The New York Times on July 6, 1896.  He had a good reason to move onto the block.  The article said "The detectives say he is a man for whom they have been looking for some time, and that he has been swindling the colored people in this vicinity by claiming that he is a magic, or Voodoo, doctor."

Aware that his targets were ill-educated, too poor to seek quality medical attention, and often desperate, Castrono would promise to cure diseases.  His downfall came when he told Mahalla Jefferson that he was "a magic Mexican doctor."  He promised to cure her 10-year-old son, Leonard, who was dying from consumption (known today as tuberculosis).  

The $15 cure--a crippling $475 for the family--came in the form of a sealed envelope and a magic belt.  Under no circumstances was Mrs. Jefferson to open the packet, or the spell would not work.  But later, according to The New York Times, "Mrs. Jefferson chanced to meet some colored people, and they told her not to use the packet as directed, as Castrono was evidently a 'Voodoo' doctor, and if the medicine was used the boy would go to the infernal regions when he died."

Now suspicious, Mahalla opened the pack to find it was filled with folded tissue paper.  She and her daughter went out to track down the bogus doctor and get their money back.  They found him on Ninth Avenue, and he invited them to his rooms.  After walking about a block, he bolted.  "The women screamed and a crowd pursued Castrono and caught him after a run of several blocks," reported The New York Times.  It spelled the end of the voodoo doctor's Hell's Kitchen career.

The residents' names continued to appear in newspapers for all the wrong reasons.  On March 12, 1897 Eliza Johnson was arrested in a raid on a brothel.  Five days later the New York Herald announced the Emma Randolph had been arrested "on the charge of cutting John Eve, also colored, of No. 347 West Thirty-seventh street, with a razor."

William Price seems to have successfully avoided crime and violence.  The 29-year-old was described by The Sun as "a colored laborer."  He returned to his third floor apartment at around 11:00 on the night of May 15, 1897 and, according to the newspaper, "Feeling rather warm, he sat on the window sill."  After awhile he fell asleep and tumbled to the rear courtyard, striking his head.  Although he was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, he was not seriously injured.

In 1904 construction started on the "Pennsylvania Tunnel" under the Hudson River.  It would provide direct rail access from New Jersey to Pennsylvania Station.  Frederick James worked on the project as a driller.  He shared his apartment at 347 West 37th Street with "Winifred de Fosta, his common law wife," as described by The Sun.

On Saturday night, May 25, 1907, there was a birthday party in the building.  Also in attendance was another driller, named Jesus.  The Sun reported, "There was plenty to drink and Jesus soon began to talk of some trouble that he had had with a foreman on the tunnel job.  He pulled out a revolver and declared that he was going to kill to the foreman.  James took the revolver away and kicked Jesus out into the street."

Later that evening, James saw Jesus "lurking in a hallway across the street," and told Winifred he "reckoned [Jesus] meant trouble."  James had no idea how much trouble the other driller had in mind.  When the couple left their apartment not long afterward, Jesus was waiting in ambush in the hallway.  He shot James through the stomach.  As Frederick James died on the hallway floor, Jesus fled.

The Sun reported, "The 'black block' between Eighth and Ninth avenues on Thirty-seventh street hummed like an angry beehive after the shooting, and the reserves had to be called out to preserve order."

Tenants at the time of the murder were paying rents from $16 to $20 a month.  The higher amount would equal about $568 per month today.  Landlords, almost all of whom were white, could charge the high rates simply because their Black tenants had little choice of where they could live.

A highly-publicized incident occurred on July 1, 1911.  John W. Collins, who had no job, lived with Georgianna Anderson, a wash woman.  Collins was known in the building and the neighborhood in general as a worthless drunk, "who has been living on the money a woman earned over the washtub," according to The Sun.

Around daylight on July 1, he came home drunk looking for more money.  "Tumbling into his own flat on the second floor rear, he shook Georgianna's shoulder, hit her in the face when she was slow to awake and threatened to kill her if she didn't give him money," said the newspaper.  She gave him all she had, the $4 she had been holding for the rent.

On the way out of the building, Collins bumped into Maggie Jones, "a little yellow woman with a temper.  She slapped his face."  Collins responded to the insult by pulling out a pistol and shooting at her.  "Maggie Jones scudded into the street and shook Hell's Kitchen with her screams," said The Sun.  Collins returned to the apartment.  Georgianna hid in the kitchen where she could hear him "mumbling to himself and gurgling gin as he lay on the bed."

Before long Collins took out his pistol and began firing at the pictures Georgianna had hung on the wall.  She cracked the bedroom door and asked him to be quiet.  "A bullet smashed through the door a foot above her head.  The woman dropped flat on the floor frightened half to death," reported The Sun.  Collins went to the window and began shooting wildly into the street.

A group of policemen nearby rushed to the scene.   A young boy told them he thought "Johnny Collins was killing his wife" and directed them to the apartment.  Officer Michael Lynch was the first to enter.  He knew Collins well and had several times in the past tried to help him.  He told his fellow officers, "when he sees me I am sure he will quiet down."

Lynch took one step into the apartment and Collins fired his pistol.  The bullet entered Lynch's head just over the eye.  "Lynch collapsed in the doorway, dead by the time his head met the floor," said the article.

Collins bolted past the stunned policemen and up the stairs to the roof.  Twenty minutes after Lynch's murder there were 100 policemen ringing the block, making a house-to-house search.  Collins was finally found under a bed in a third-floor room at 306 West 37th Street.  The Sun reported, "The street was solidly packed with negroes and whites, who broke over the police lines and pressed noisily against the policemen and their prisoner."  

The mob tried to seize Collins from the police, but they were able to keep them back by using their clubs all the way to the station house.   The newspaper said, "Feelings were at a fever height and, recalling the many clashes which had taken place in the past between the white and Negro residents of this neighborhood, it was feared that when the news of Lynch's death was learned a terrible race riot would result."

At the station house, according to police, Collins "appeared to be stupidly drunk" and told investigators that he could not remember what had happened.  And that was Collins's defense during this trial--that he remembered nothing.  He was found guilty and on August 16, 1911 The Evening Telegram ran the headline, "Negro Who Shot Policeman Must Pay With Life."

Over the years there were numerous complaints from residents about startling and sometimes violent police abuse.  The abuse seems to have gone both ways, however.

On March 18, 1910 Violet Brown, a resident of 347 West 37th Street, was loitering on 26th Street.  Patrolman Michael Gavegan ordered her to "move on."  Enraged, Violet rushed up the stoop of a house to get a strategic, elevated vantage point, then kicked the officer several times in the head, breaking his jaw.  Two passersby "overpowered the woman," and took her to the police station.

Patrolman James McGinnis was on his post at 37th Street and Eighth Avenue early in the morning of April 22, 1926.  A woman rushed up saying that the restaurant at 331 West 37th Street was being robbed.  As McGinnis approached the restaurant, 25-year-old Dominick Marolli, another resident of 347 West 37th Street, ran out followed closely by its owner, Peter Makey.

Although Marolli put up a fight, he "was subdued with the policeman's nightstick," according to The New York Sun.  But on the way to the station house, the prisoner's father, John Marolli, and a teenaged boy appeared.  "The elder Marolli drew a knife, according to the patrolman, and then the two newcomers and his prisoner turned upon him," said the article.   The tense situation for the policeman eventually ended with all three being arrested on charges of felonious assault.

By mid-century the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood saw fewer Blacks and more Hispanic residents.  But the violence and racial tensions continued, with Puerto Rican gangs, like the Vampires, waging war with Italian and Irish gangs.  The conditions were vividly portrayed in Leonard Bernstein's play West Side Story in which teenaged boys carried deadly weapons and fought hand-to-hand combat in pre-determined "rumbles."

But the West 37th Street block was, as well, being engulfed by the expanding Garment District.  Closer to Eighth Avenue loft buildings replaced the old tenement houses.  In 1999 347 West 37th Street was converted to Fountain House, a non-profit rehabilitation "clubhouse" for people with serious mental illness.  An architecturally bland sixth floor was added at the same time, while surprisingly preserving the copper cornice.

Other than the penthouse and replacement windows, Louis Korn's 125-year-old tenement is remarkably unchanged.  One of only a few relics on the block from a time of violence, poverty and misery.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

the 1895 H. Richter's Sons Building - 627-629 Broadway

In 1888 clothiers A. H. King & Co. operated from the combined storefronts of Nos. 627 and 629 Broadway, between Houston and Bleecker Streets.  Their well-heeled patrons could afford the silk-lined overcoats it advertised that September which cost the equivalent of $817 today.  

At the time H. Richter's Sons was located a few blocks to the south, at Nos. 502-504 Broadway.  The men's neckwear manufacturer hired Ehrich Weiss as an assistant lining cutter in 1889.  The Austrian-born immigrant would later change his professional name to Harry Houdini.

A. H. King & Co. would have to find a temporary location for its store in 1894 when H. Richter's Sons demolished Nos. 627 and 629 Broadway and hired architect Louis Korn to design a modern replacement loft and store building on the site.  Korn was prolific in the area at the time, designing dozens of loft buildings on Lower Fifth Avenue, Broadway and the streets between.

He produced at 10-story Renaissance Revival style structure faced in tan brick and limestone with terra cotta decoration that ran through the block to Mercer Street.  Completed in 1895, the openings of the third through seventh floors were enclosed within two five-story elliptical arches.  Elaborate Renaissance-inspired terra cotta decorations embellished the eighth floor, and the top two floors were unified by double-height Corinthian pilasters.  A regal stone balustrade perched above the cornice.

King's Photographic Views of New York, (copyright expired)

A. H. King & Co. moved back to its old address in the new Richter Building along with its landlord, whose factory engulfed the second, third and eighth floors.  Other space was leased to clothing manufacturer Samuel Gumpert & Co.; millinery firm Weber & Leopold; and Veit, Son & Co., "millinery ornaments and braids."

H. Richter's Sons installed a state-of-the-art security system into its facilities.  A burglar alarm was connected to the Holmes Electric Protective Co. which had keys to the space.  The firm had not been in its new home long before the system proved its worth.

The Jewish-owned firm was closed on Saturdays and around noon on March 7 a signal alerted the alarm company that someone was attempting to break into the eighth full offices.  Two investigators were sent to the building.

The New York Times reported "Richter's Sons keep their safe in the office, and the private detectives were in hopes of catching the burglar.  He heard them coming, however, and as they separated on the top landing, one to take each door of the office, he ran between them, down the stairs, and to the street."  The private detectives were close on his heels and all three reached the street nearly together.  

The crook was Firmon J. Heiman, alias Levy, called by police "a sneak-thief and burglar, whose picture is in the Rogues' Gallery."  Unfortunately for him, there were two policemen on the corner of Bleecker Street and Broadway and he was soon behind bars at Police Headquarters.

So grateful were the Richter brothers that the alarm had prevented a theft that they placed a prominent advertisement in the New-York Tribune the following week in the form of a letter to Holmes.  It said in part:

There is no doubt but what we would have suffered a severe loss on Saturday last had our building not been equipped with your Electric wires.  It pleases us that through your efforts New York City has one thief less at large.

The Millinery Trade Review, July 1904 (copyright expired)

Weber & Leopold was also up-to-date in terms of technology.  As it geared up for its summer line of hats in February 1902, it placed an advertisement in The New York Herald seeking "Experienced power operators on W. & G. machine millinery work; long season; highest pay."

Original tenants Veit, Son & Co. and A. H. King & Co. were still in the building in 1907 when they were joined by the Commercial Shirt Co. and Werner, Julius & Sommer Co., makers of men's clothing.  In 1909 R. G. S. Novelty Co., manufacturers of "boys waists" and "wash suits" occupied space as well.

H. Richter's Sons' advertisements were unexpectedly understated.  The Sun, March 7, 1909 (copyright expired)

On March 26, 1912 fire broke out in the fire story building at No. 623 Broadway.  The intense blaze quickly spread to No. 625 and then, according Insurance Engineering magazine, "In the twelfth story the fire entered through the windows in the light shaft between 625 and 627-629, so rapid was the spread in the stories below."  The publication blamed inadequate protections for the severe damage to the H. Richter's Sons building.  "The flimsy protection in the windows in the light shaft in 627-629 Broadway could not withstand the heat of the fire and the tenth story was completely gutted."

The top story of the Richter Building was gutted.  Insurance Engineering, May 1912 (copyright expired

When repairs were completed the Commercial Shirt Company moved back into its top floor space.  At 7:30 on the evening of December 9 five young women and three men were at work when fire struck again.  This time it broke out in the cellar of Veit, Son & Co.  Ironically the firm was preparing to move out after nearly a decade.  All its stock had been packed in cases ready for the move.

As the fire spread upward to the store level, the top floor workers remained unaware until smoke wafted upward.  The New-York Tribune reported "Owing to the smoke and the poor means of reaching the blaze the firemen had a hard time fighting the fire."  That smoke made escape down the staircases impossible for the Commercial Shirt Company employees, who had to negotiate the ten stories to the street down the Mercer Street fire escape.

Once again fire repairs were made.  Commercial Shirt Co. remained in the building, employing forty men and sixty women.  The waist manufacturing firm International Mfg. Co. was also a large concern, with nine men, thirty-five women, and one teenager less than 16-years old working in its factory.   H. Richter's Sons staff included twenty-four men and fifty-two women with five office workers.

On October 31, 1915 the New-York Tribune reported on a new tenant.  Kaplan Brothers had taken 20,000 square feet in the Richter Building "for the sale of artificial foliage."   Artificial flowers were an important decoration for women's hats.  Soon Katz & Auerbach, dealers in artificial flowers and feathers, took space as well.

The latter firm's name appeared in newspapers for all the wrong reasons in the summer of 1921.  One of its partners, Maurice Auerbach, had married on January 11, 1920.  Things quickly deteriorated in the marriage.  In August 1921 Doris Auerbach went to court charging "that her husband had struck her on several occasions since their marriage and threatened her with death," according to the New-York Tribune on August 6.

She additionally complained that she had "no home worthy the name."  He refused to buy common apartment furnishings like dishes or carpets.  After enduring the physical, mental and verbal abuse for months, Doris moved in with her parents in February 1921.  Concerned that a divorce was imminent, Auerbach transferred all his personal assets to the company.  Doris's affidavit quoted him as saying "You haven't a thing on me.  I have transferred everything I own to corporations and you can't use me as a meal ticket any longer.  I am sick of you and everything connected with you.  Back to Ma."

In 1959 the building was purchased by swimwear manufacturer Fay Fischel who had founded the firm with her husband in 1937.    Three decades later, while the swimwear factory was gone, the Fischels still retained possession of the building, and the floors that were once filled with garment workers and sewing machines now held modern offices spaces.

New York University took space in the building in 2008.  A subsequent renovation completed in 2009 resulted in a store on the ground floor sharing space with the school's lobby and classrooms, conference rooms and offices on the upper floors.

photographs by the author

The 1902 Rhinelander Apartments - 12 Fifth Avenue

photo via apartments.com

In 1834 construction was completed on the impressive mansion of Henry Brevoort, Jr. at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 9th Street.  The residence, which sat on land owned by his father, was surrounded by undeveloped land.  Fifth Avenue was still unpaved at the time.  But a decade later upscale homes were rising all around.

In 1848 Brevoort started construction on four houses in the newly-popular Gothic Revival style a block to the south of his own home.  Stretching from No. 10 at the northwest corner of 8th Street to No. 16, they were clad in brownstone and featured medieval touches such as incised panels with quatrefoil designs and square-headed eyebrows over the windows.

No. 12 Fifth Avenue was a match to Nos. 14 and 16, seen here.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

At the turn of the century most of the millionaires had abandoned this section of Fifth Avenue, moving further northward towards Central Park.  On January 18, 1902 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that developer Max Juster had purchased No. 12 Fifth Avenue with intentions of erecting a nine-story apartment hotel.  The journal made note that it would be a step up for him, saying his "operations heretofore have been confined to tenement houses."

Juster announced his choice of architects, Louis Korn, the same day.  The well-known architect was known almost exclusively for his designing of tall loft and store buildings and the Rhinelander would be a notable departure from his comfort zone.  

Korn's plans, filed on February 14, 1902, projected the cost of construction at $150,000--or about $4.6 million today.  When construction was completed in 1904, Korn had produced a somewhat bizarre design that caused The New York Times architectural journalist Christopher Gray to call it decades later "a confusing assemblage of four distinct sections."

Those sections sat upon one another like unrelated building blocks.  The entrance sat within a handsome columned portico.  The rusticated two-story stone base supported four floors of red brick dominated by a powerful two-story Beaux Arts style limestone window and balcony.

photo by Spencer Means

The entire seventh floor was visually a part of the massive cornice which introduced the eighth and ninth floors.  Korn forwent a terminal cornice in favor of parapet, broken by balustrades, and topped by a  partial flat roof on stilts.

Louis Korn's design is best described as eccentric.  photo by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Apartment hotels blended the permanency of an apartment with the convenience of hotel living.  Residents enjoyed maid and hallboy service (hallboys ran errands, delivered mail and packages, and helped tenants as needed) and could dine in the building's restaurant.  

An advertisement in October 1904 described the building as "perfectly appointed, located in the best section of Manhattan" and added, "Modern in the strictest sense, and conducted on the highest plane of efficiency, this hotel appeals especially to discriminating and refined people."  The apartments ranged from two to six rooms.  The ad noted "Restaurant a la Carte, Table d'Hote."

The hotel management was put in an uncomfortable situation in the spring of 1906.  The Bolsheviks sent author and Socialist activist Maxim Gorky to the United States on a fund-raising trip.   When he arrived in Hoboken on the ship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse on April 10, he was received with overwhelming warmth.  The New York Times reported that “the reception given to Gorky rivaled with that of Kossuth and Garibaldi.”  Gorky related that now his long-cherished dream to visit the free land of America had come true.  It was a love affair that would be short-lived. 

On April 15 the New-York Tribune said that while he had been overwhelmed by the "warmth and welcome" he had received, he "has also learned that it is unfortunate to lend his name to expressions of sympathy to those who are held for crime in this country without a clear knowledge of all the circumstances."  Gorky paid for his outspoken opinions by finding himself and "Madame Gorky" evicted from their rooms at the Lafayette-Brevoort hotel.  Its proprietor sent their bags to the Rhinelander with a message to hold rooms.  He apparently did not say for whom.

But the Tribune reported "When they got to the Rhinelander an house before midnight, however, they were told by Frank Geraty, the manage, that they could not stay there and that their baggage must be removed immediately."  They went from there to the Hotel Victoria, and then to the Hotel Belleclaire, receiving the same cold reception.

In the meantime, the well-heeled residents were an interesting lot.  Lemuel Ely Quigg had started his career as a journalist, working with newspapers like the New-York Tribune and the New York Press.  He turned to politics and was elected to Congress in 1894.  By the time he moved into No. 12 Fifth Avenue with his wife Ethel, he had become the right hand man of Tammany leader Boss Tom Platt.  Known as "The Accelerator," he admitted later than he had distributed $200,000 in bribes on the rapid transit project.

Engineer John E. Starr and his wife lived in the Rhinelander in 1906 when he was called upon to solve a potentially disastrous problem.  The head of the Starr Engineering Company, he was well known for his expertise in refrigeration.  The New York Times said that he "invented several absorption refrigerating devices and a machine that produces temperatures from 30 to 75 degrees below zero."

On January 3, 1906 The Patterson Morning Call reported on a terrifying situation in the Brooklyn-Manhattan rapid transit tunnel.  Cast iron rings which connected the concrete sections had failed and the newspaper reported that "a small section...is twenty inches below the adjoining section on the New York side."  Trains came to a halt, of course, pending a solution.

"Meanwhile, the company, after failing to devise a plan for readjusting the sunken part of the tube, has engaged John E. Starr, a prominent mechanical engineer, to remedy the difficulty and has accepted a novel plan of his invention," said the article.  Using ammonia, Starr froze the river bed, telling reporters "It has been shown that frozen mud has the stability of concrete."  Four feet of mud was frozen, thereby stabilizing the broken section and making repairs possible.

Alida Blake Hazard headed the New York branch of the Florence Crittenton Association, founded in 1883 "to aid and encourage destitute, homeless, and depraved women who wish to seek reformation."  Her outspoken opinions are, perhaps, surprising today.  

"White slavery," or forced prostitution, was a significant problem in New York City.  After an Italian immigrant girl's body was discovered in June 1917, The Evening World launched an investigation which revealed a horrifying truth.  In the past six months more than 700 immigrant girls had been reported missing in New York City.  Alida Hazard campaigned to end the "vulgar explosion" of press coverage, and accused the newspapers of profiting from the crimes.

She was equally outspoken against women's right to vote, warning that it would lead to Socialism, a "greater evil."  She pointed out a "curious alliance...between the Socialists and the Suffragists."

Dr. Frederick S. Mason and his wife were living at No. 12 Fifth Avenue in the years preceding the outbreak of World War I.  In addition to his medical practice (he would be remembered for his experiments in the treatment of gonorrhea), Mason was the head of a perfume factory.

In 1913 the couple traveled to Guayaquil, Ecuador where locals were battling an outbreak of bubonic plague.  But the Masons came home earlier than expected.  On January 2, 1914 the New-York Tribune entitled an article "Returns To Face Suit" and reported that Dr. Mason and his wife had arrived in New York the previous day.  "As soon as the vessel docked Dr. Mason and his wife hurried to their home.  Neither would discuss Miss von Huber's suit."

Miss von Huber was Dorothy L. von Huber who had filed a $200,000 suit for breach of promise.  The young woman had been an employee in the perfume factory and told reporters "that for more than two years the doctor kept company with her, taking her to places of entertainment."  Her "love suit," as described by the New-York Tribune, would amount to $5.28 million today.

Dr. Mason's defense was persuasive.  While he emphatically denied the allegations, he also pointed out "that she had a husband in Washington" and therefore was unable to accept an offer of marriage had it been offered.

With the unpleasant matter behind them, the Masons traveled to Europe where war had just erupted.  They returned from France in September 1914 to relate the horrors they had witnessed.  The New York Evening Telegram reported "In the Paris General Hospital, Dr. Mason said he saw two Belgian girls, sixteen and twenty-five years old, respectively, who are recovering from serious wounds inflicted by German soldiers."

Diana Leighton and her husband, a traveling salesman for a Chicago-based woodworking firm, lived in the building in 1922.  On August 2 her husband was out of town and Diana went to Central Park to ride on the bridal path.   The Brooklyn newspaper The Daily Star reported "An automobile operated by Charles Yacobellis...was commandeered by Mounted Policeman William J. Garvey in Central Park yesterday to carry Miss Diana Leighton, 23 years old...to the Reconstruction Hospital after she had been thrown from a horse."  Tragically, two days later the young woman died.

Descendants of Henry Brevoort, Jr. lived in the apartment building at the time.  Their letters to editors of newspapers may have raised eyebrows around town.  On April 24, 1922 The Evening Telegram printed an opinion sent in by Anton Brevoort supporting the concept of branding thieves on the face.  His letter said in part:

Branding of criminals under the left eye for the first offence of stealing cattle in the far West years ago and under the right eye for the second offence--letter "T," one inch--was the cure for cattle thieving at once in Wyoming...Now, if New York State had such a law Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, &c., would be more comfortable places for thieves, thus relieving New York State.

The following month Livington Brevoort sent a question to the editor of The Evening Telegram:

Kindly advise me if my wife has any legal right to punch me in the eye on Decoration Day, making it black and blue?  This she did last Decoration Day and threatens to this one.

As the Masons had done in 1913, Majorie Howarth and her husband traveled to Ecuador in March 1922; however theirs was purely a pleasure trip--or at least it started out that way.  The Unitarian Register reported "only after their arrival in South America did they decide to include the dangerous journey over the Andes among their pleasures."  

Upon their return to New York in October The New York Times ran the headline: "New York Woman Scales The Andes / Mrs. Marjorie Howarth First of Her Sex to Cross the Third Range."  The 885-mile trek over land and water included an ascent of 14,600 feet above sea level.  At one point, after Mr. Horwarth became so ill that he had to be carried, Marjorie took command of the expedition.  

The Horwarths returned to No. 12 Fifth Avenue with exotic souvenirs and an unexpected memento.  The Times reported "Besides such trophies as a couple of jaguar skins, one of a young boa-constrictor, a live parrot and several grains of puree gold, which the Indians presented in return for gifts of stores, Mr. and Mrs. Howarth have as a further souvenir of their jungle experiences an Indian boy...This Indian is named Segendo Garzon.  He pleaded so hard for a view of the United States that the explorers consented to bring him along."

In 1949 a renovation resulted in a doctor's office on the ground floor and four apartments each on each floor other than the seventh and eights, which had three.  An addition on the roof contained one apartment.  It was most likely at this time that the limestone entrance portico and the parapet roof were removed.

The removal of the portico left nearly no trace.  photo via urbanedge.apartments.com

That configuration remains today.  Other than the mid-century alterations, Louis Korn's rather unconventional building looks much as it did when the first tenants moved in in 1904.