The 1844 Cornelius G. Vanriper House - 28 Jones Street

 

In 1843, construction of a row of Greek Revival-style homes along Jones Street near Bleecker Street was commenced.  Although essentially identical, each of the brick-faced homes, completed in 1844, was erected by different owners.  Among them was 28 Jones Street.  Dorothy Peterson spent $3,700 for the project, including the land, or about $156,000 in 2025.

Like its neighbors, it was three stories tall above a brownstone English basement.  The upper floors were faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The single-doored entrance featured paneled pilasters, sidelights, and an ample transom above a denticulated cornice.

Peterson leased the residence to Cornelius Gerrrit Vanriper (sometimes spelled Van Riper).  His wife, the former Caterina B. Demerest, was active in charity work and was a manager of the newly formed Ladies Benevolent Society, which was organized in the winter of 1843, just before the family moved into 28 Jones Street.  Cornelius and Caterina had four children.  As late as 1850, at least one of them, Anthony, still lived with his parents.  He made his living as a carpenter.

The following year, the Vanripers moved nearby to 12 Jones Street and 28 Jones became home to John A. Berdan, a "casemaker," or furniture builder.  As was common, in the rear yard was a small house.  Along with the Berdans, three tenants were listed here.  Benjamin C. Knapp ran a fancygoods store on Bleecker Street, Joseph B. Harriot was in the flour business on Charles Street, and the Mills family likely occupied the rear house.

Little George Mills attended the Ninth Ward School on Greenwich Street.  On the morning of November 22, 1851, the primary department teacher, Miss Harrison, "was suddenly seized with a paralysis of the tongue," reported The Evening Post.  (Today we would recognize the symptoms as that of a stroke.)  Thinking that she needed a glass of water, one of the students ran into the hallway calling, "Water!"  Pupils in other classrooms assumed a fire had broken out, and panic ensued.  Screaming "Fire! Fire!" the students stampeded into the halls and onto the stairway.

The staircase, unable to handle the weight of the throng of children, collapsed.  The New York Times reported that scores of children plummeted to the stone floor.  "In this way, the area was instantly filled, and there they lay, one upon another, to the depth of ten or twelve feet."  The Evening Post reported that 49 children were killed and many more severely injured.  Among the dead was George Mills.

In 1855, Dorothy Peterson sold 28 Jones Street to Richard J. Yereance, a builder-carpenter.  He married Charity E. Mabie on July 20, 1834 and the couple had one daughter, Catharine Louisa Edsall, born in 1838.  By 1860, Catharine was teaching at the Ninth Street Church School on West 4th Street.

Catharine's days of teaching ended in 1863, when she married Everardus Warner on November 4.  The newlyweds remained in the Jones Street house.  Warner was a partner with Abraham Warner, presumably a brother, in a stationery business.  

On September 5, 1865, Charity E. Yereance died at the age of 59.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on the 7th.  Richard moved to Charlton Street, where he died two years later.

Catherine's parents had transferred the title of the Jones Street property to her in 1862.  At the time of Richard's death, the Warners had a one-year-old baby girl, Ida Louisa.  In 1867, Abraham Warner moved in with the family (possibly into the rear house).   The following year, another baby, Everadrus B., was born, and in 1871 Edgar E. arrived.

By the time of Edgar's birth, his father had changed course, now listing his profession as "gas."  On December 21, 1875, Everardus added to his resume by enlisting in the 71st Regiment of Infantry.  (He would change his job again in the 1880s, becoming an undertaker.)

A disturbing incident occurred on November 12, 1877.  Mrs. Alfred Van Buren, described by the New York Herald as "a very attractive looking lady," visited the Warners.  She and her husband lived on East 126th Street in Harlem.  She left that evening and, said the newspaper two days later, "since then has not been heard from.  She was of sane mind and lived happily with her husband, who is anxious for her safety."  

Three weeks later, on December 6, The Morning Democrat reported, "Mrs. Alfred Van Buren...started on Jones street on the 12th of November, to take a Third avenue car for her home.  She was suffering from neuralgia and the Lord only knows what [has] become of her."  The story was circulated as far away as Iowa, but the missing woman was never found.

The Warners sold 28 Jones Street in 1887 to Edward and Annie Bachmann.  Edward was a piano manufacturer.  The couple rented the second floor to George Gross and his wife.  Living with them were their two unmarried daughters.  The New-York Tribune described Gross as "a German truckman," and The Evening World said he did, "a good business as a carman, owning half a dozen horses and as many trucks."  

Unfortunately, the 54-year-old suffered a stroke in 1888.  The New-York Tribune said it, "ruined his health, and his business did not pay."  One-by-one, Gross liquidated his assets, selling his last horse in January 1889.  The following month, on February 3, Gross suffered another stroke.  One of the daughters, Lizzie, who was visiting friends in Irvington, New Jersey, was sent for.  She arrived home on the evening of February 6.  The Evening World said, "the father appeared very glad to see her.  He talked a great deal about his ruined business, but was finally persuaded to retire."

The following morning, Gross arose at 6:00 and had breakfast, "but acted as if he was out of his mind," reported The Evening World.  He rested on the sofa for an hour, then went to his room.  Shortly after 8:00, while the women were in the kitchen, Lizzie heard a gunshot.  They women ran to the bedroom to find Gross dead.  The Evening World remarked frankly, "Mr. Gross was undoubtedly insane."

The Bachmanns continued to rent space in their home.  An advertisement in The Sun on January 29, 1893, read, "Third floor, 3 rooms, with improvements; private house.  28 Jones st."  

In 1905, the couple sold 28 Jones Street to the Cooperative Social Settlement Society of the City of New York.  The group was founded in the house next door at 26 Jones Street by Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch and opened on Thanksgiving Day 1902 as Greenwich House.

The rear yard of 28 Jones Street was called "The Farm."  The Commons, March 1905 (copyright expired)

Dr. William H. Tolman, in his 1903 The Better New York, explained that the Greenwich House works, "on a different basis from that ordinarily adopted by social settlements.  It believes that the neighborhood about a settlement should be represented on the board of managers, and also believes in the co-responsibility of residents, workers and non-residents."

In October 1906, the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund authorized the city to lease the parlor floor of 28 Jones Street for school purposes.  The rent was $450 per year.  Run by Greenwich House staff, Greenwich Handicraft School had 80 pupils by 1908.  The American Art Directory explained that year, "Its object is to train women and girls in lace-making, weaving, and allied crafts, and to foster in its neighborhood an appreciation of the beautiful."

In 1917, Greenwich House moved into its new building at 27 Barrow Street.  The Cooperative Settlement Society leased apartments in the house, among the earliest tenants being Charles Bates Sticker, an electrical engineer with Wright-Martin Aircraft Corp. on Long Island.  In 1919, Anna Cook lived here.  That year the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly reported that she "has a position at Hickson's in New York, finishing garments, as a stepping-stone to designing."

Essentially nothing has changed to 28 Jones Street since this photograph was taken in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1921, 26 and 28 Jones Street were incorporated as Greenwich House Co-operative Apartments, Inc.  Living at 28 Jones Street in 1922 were Katharine Fowler Pettit, an alumna of Bryn Mawr College, and her husband, Walter William Pettit.  Around that time, Arthur Piper and his wife, the former Augusta Louise Coleman moved in.  He was the managing editor of The Survey, a semi-monthly periodical, and treasurer of Survey Graphic, a monthly.

At mid-century, attorney James H. Black and his wife lived here.  And as early as 1982, playwright and author Tony Buttitta was a resident.  Born in 1907 in Louisiana, Buttitta first published plays in the 1920s.  He co-founded the literary magazine Contempo in 1931.  Through that position, he became acquainted with writers like George Bernard Shaw, William Faulkner, Ezra Pound and Sherwood Anderson.  Among the works he published while living here, are the 1982 Uncle Sam Presents: A Memoir of the Federal Theatre, 1935-39; and The Lost Summer: A Memoir of F. Scott Fitzgerald, in 1987.

Little has changed externally to the house after more than 180 years.  Today there are four units in the building.

photographs by the author

The 1844 Stephen and Jane Webster House - 30 Jones Street

 

In 1794, Dr. Gardiner Jones laid out a short lane in Greenwich Village and gave the block-long road his own name--Jones Street.  Half a century later, in 1843, John Moore purchased the property at 30 Jones Street upon which one of a stylish row of Greek Revival houses was being constructed.  The house was completed in 1844.  Its three stories of red brick sat above a brownstone basement.  Typical of the style, the house was trimmed in brownstone and capped with an understated cornice.

Moore apparently purchased the house as an investment and never lived here.  It was operated as a boarding house in 1845, home to blue collar tenants.  Living in the smaller house in the rear yard were Elizabeth Simons, a widow, and Philip P. Ruger, a carman (a driver of a delivery vehicle).  Living in the main house were another carman, Joshua Barton; James Hull, who listed his profession as "gas;" and Marvin Rowland and Jacob B. Skaats, a carpenter and cooper, respectively.

John Moore sold the property in 1848 to William Waring.  The Waring family's residency was short lived.  In 1851, Stephen and Jane Webster purchased 30 Jones Street.  The couple had a son, Samuel A. who worked as a clerk in 1853.  Stephen was a wholesale grocer in the Erie Building.  That structure, erected in 1848 by the Erie Railway, filled a block on the Hudson riverfront.

Stephen Webster operated his wholesale grocery business from the Erie Building.  from Between the Ocean and the Lakes by Edward Harold Mott, 1899 (copyright expired)

It was common at the time for families who had extra space to take in boarders.  In June 1856, the Webster family advertised, "A suite of furnished rooms on second floor to let, with board; gas in the rooms.  Also, two furnished rooms, for single gentlemen, with full or partial board.  Convenient to stages and cars."  (Most families avoided taking in single women in order to preserve their respectability.)

The Websters moved to Bleecker Street in 1862, selling 30 Jones Street to John McLachlan.  Four years later, on March 8, 1866, an advertisement read, "For Sale--The three story and basement high stoop brick House, 30 Jones street; house 21x45...modern improvements and wash house on rear end of lot."  

It was purchased by David and Ellen R. Smith.  Smith was a speculator in railroad stock.  The couple welcomed a baby daughter, Mary Ella, on September 14, 1867.  Tragically, the toddler died on February 27, 1870, at two-and-a-half years old.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on March 1.

David Smith was inadvertently pulled into a murder case that kept newspaper readers nationwide rapt in 1872.  At around 3:40 on the afternoon of January 6, Smith was sitting at a restaurant, Chamberlain & Dodge, when millionaire oil and railroad man Edward S. Stokes approached.  Smith later testified, "He came up and shook hands with me, and asked me to take a drink.  We walked up to the bar, and he then began to speak of this horse race."  The two made small talk and then parted ways.  

Stokes walked to the nearby Grand Central Hotel and fatally shot his business partner and nemesis in a love triangle, Jim Fisk.  Although Smith's interaction with Stokes was one of the last before the murder, he was unable to supply valuable testimony to either the defense or prosecution.

The Smiths sold 30 Jones Street in 1875.  It was resold in March 1881 to Frederick M. and Julia Schmidt.  Frederick was born in 1847.  The couple paid $9,000 for the property, about $277,000 in 2025.  The Schmidts had two daughters.

By 1894, the house in the rear yard had been replaced by a single-story structure, which the Schmidts used for storage of "pictures and household goods," according to the The Evening World.  The newspaper described it as "separated from the house by a small courtyard."   

At around 10:00 on the morning of April 14, 1894, Frederick noticed smoke coming from a window in the storeroom.  The Evening World reported, "He rushed into the courtyard and broke open the door.  At a glance he saw that the fire was climbing up the wall on one side of the building."  Schmidt tried to smother the flames with a blanket, but the fire had grown too large.  His clothing caught fire and "when his wife reached his side, attracted by his cries, he was a mass of flames."

By the time Julia dragged Frederick onto the lawn, their daughters, one 19 and the other 22 years old, had arrived.  The article said, "The three women succeeded in tearing the burning clothes from Schmidt, but not before his body, face and hands had been frightfully burned."  The daughters suffered burns to their hands.

Neighbors, attracted by the commotion, helped carry Frederick into the house.  In the meantime, despite the neighbors protests, Julia insisted on re-entering the burning building to salvage "a valuable picture."  When the fire fighters arrived, she was still there.  The Evening World reported, "Partially overcome by smoke, she was carried out of the place.  Her hands and hair were scorched."  The fire fighters opined, "that rats gnawed matches that were in the building and thus caused the fire."

On October 23, 1906, Julia Schmidt died.  Her funeral was held in the house on October 25.  One year later, on October 15, 1907, Frederick Schmidt sold 30 Jones Street to Stefano and Adelaide Rolandelli.  By 1911, the couple was leasing the house to Greenwich House, which also operated at 26 Jones Street.

Greenwich House was founded in November 1902, "for the establishment and maintenance of a social settlement [for] social, educational, and civic improvements, to be carried on in conjunction and association with the people residing in the neighborhood."  The 1911 Handbook of Settlements noted,

The district in which the house is situated is known as the old American quarter.  Its outward signs are the small three-story house, the small shop, the picturesque and winding streets; and permeating all, the note of torpor and decay.

The Greenwich Settlement operated from the house until about 1922, when the Rolandellis converted it to apartments.  Artist Reginald Marsh lived here on September 7, 1923 when he and Elizabeth Burroughs took out a marriage license.  The Brooklyn Daily Star mentioned that the 25-year-old artist's intended bride "is well known among the younger set of the North Shore."

Author Sue Jenkins Brown and her husband, James Light, had lived here for a year at the time.  Their apartment was a center of the Village arts community.  In his The Life and Work of Ludwig Lewisohn, Ralph Melnick describes one of Sue Jenkins Brown's gatherings:

It was a "young party," with some whose reputations were already developing--Brown's husband James Light (known to Ludwig [i.e., Lewisohn] from his involvement with the Provincetown Players), Malcolm Cowley, Kenneth Burke, their wives, and others of their group, possibly Hart Crane, William Slater Brown, Allen Tate, and Matthew Josephson.

In 1924, Sue Jenkin Brown loaned her apartment to poet and essayist Allen Tate and novelist and critic Caroline Gordon.  Nancylee Novell Jonza writes in The Underground Stream, The Life and Art of Caroline Gordon, "Sue gave Carolyn and Allen the use of her apartment at 30 Jones Street, and the couple began telling friends and family that they were married."  (The two would marry the following year.)  

The occupants of the apartments in the three houses at 26 to 30 Jones Street purchased the properties cooperatively in 1929 as the Greenwich House Co-operative Apartments, Inc.

Many of the owners continued to be involved in the arts.  On April 14, 1934, for instance, The New York Age reported, "The Theatre Union, an organization that is out to break down all the barriers that are hampering the progress of universal art...gave a very successful tea last Sunday afternoon at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gratton, 30 Jones street, on the eve of the opening of their second venture, 'Stevedore.'"

Essentially nothing outwardly has changed since this photo was taken in 1941.  via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

Maria Muldaur would become a leading figure in the American folk music revival in the 1960s.  But before finding fame, she lived here.  In her Bob Dylan, Intimate Insights from Friends and Fellow Musicians, Kathleen Mackay recalls,

When Muldaur ran away from home in 1960, she actually ran to the building at 30 Jones Street where she was staying during her current visit to New York.  She took a job as a mother's helper for one of the families in the building.  It gave her free room and board while she finished high school.  At the time, the Village was a mecca for people "to be running away to" as Muldaur put it.

Outwardly little changed, today 30 Jones Street with its remarkable history contains two residences.

photographs by the author

The 1923 Public National Bank Bldg - 106 Avenue C

 

photograph by Beyond My Ken

At the turn of the last century, a branch of the Anguilar Free Public Library sat on the northeast corner of Avenue C and East 7th street.  On July 9, 1902, the New-York Tribune explained that the Anguilar Free Library Society's facilities, "are mostly situated in poor and densely populated sections of the city."

Five years after that article, the Public Bank was organized as a state bank, and in 1917 "it took out a charter as a national bank," according to the New-York Tribune, becoming the Public National Bank.  The institution's growth was prodigious.  In 1922 it had $78 million in deposits and seven branches in Manhattan.  And there was about to be one more.  In September that year, The New York Times reported that the bank had purchased the "three-story business building at the northeast corner of Avenue C and Seventh Street."  The article said it would "be altered early next Spring and used by the bank as a branch office."

The trustees quickly changed their minds, however.  Instead, the bank demolished the old building and hired Eugene Schoen to design a replacement structure on the site.  His plans, filed in May 1923, projected the construction cost at $50,000--just under $920,000 in 2025 terms.  Ground was broken in June and construction completed in December.

The multi-talented Eugene Schoen was well-respected as a furniture designer, interior decorator and architect at the time.  Born of Hungarian Jewish immigrants in 1880, his father was Rabbi Jacob Schoen.  He studied architecture at Columbia University before working in the office of McKim, Mead & White.  In 1913, Schoen spent five months in Europe, where he met artist Alphons Mucha, renowned for his Art Nouveau designs, and architect Josef Hoffman, a founder of the Viennese Succession movement.  Schoen's exposure to their ground-breaking designs would be reflected in his own work back in New York City, including the Public National Bank building.

Sitting upon a granite water table, the two-story structure was clad in granitex, a material similar to cast concrete, and trimmed in terra cotta.  Schoen chamfered the corner where he placed the projecting, rounded entrance.  It was flanked by engaged, fluted granite columns that upheld a symphony of colorful terra cotta (executed by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co.) that terminated in a wreath of fruits and leaves that surrounded a clock.  

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Decorative rondels sat between the bases of full-height, fluted pilasters.  Like the entrance columns, they had no capitals.  They upheld a two-layered parapet above a band of decorative bosses.

Inside, the cavernous banking room rose to the equivalent of two stories.  The bank's offices occupied the second floor.

The clock and ground floor rondels can be seen in this 1941 photograph.  The bank's name is emblazoned on the parapet.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1952, the Public National Bank & Trust Co. opened a new branch at Broadway and East 3rd Street.  Two years later, the bank sold 106 Avenue C to Stuymet Realty Corp., headed by Grand Rabbi Isak Leifer.  The purchasers hired architect Henry G. Harris to convert the bank building to a nursing home.  The double-height banking room was divided into two floors and an additional entrance was cut on the East 7th Street side.  The ground floor rondels were removed and first floor windows were filled in with glass block.

Called the Stuyvesant Nursing Home, it was acquired by Dr. Bernard Bergman, who would eventually own as many as 70 other similar facilities.  In the early 1970s, prompted by complaints of "no heat, vermin infestations, neglect, filth and odors, and physical abuse" at the Towers Nursing Home on the Upper West Side, state and federal authorities launched an investigation into Bergman's nursing homes.  The Stuyvesant Nursing Home was shut down in 1972.  Bergman was indicted in 1975 and subsequently convicted of Medicare fraud.

The property passed hands twice before being foreclosed by the City in 1977 for non-payment of taxes.  On July 13 that year, the city was plunged into blackness after lightning struck a Con Edison electrical substation at 8:34 p.m.  Almost unbelievably, a second lightning strike hit two transmission lines, followed by a third strike to the Sprain Brook substation in Yonkers.  By 9:37 p.m. the city was in total darkness.  

The building was sorely neglected in the early 1980s.  photograph by Albert J. Winn from the collection of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The blackout lasted until the following day.  Thousands of looters ran rampant throughout the city.  Hundreds of stores were broken into (including a Bronx car dealership that lost 50 new automobiles) and damage was considerable.  Mayor Abe Beame called it, "a night of terror," adding, "The costs when finally tallied will be enormous."

On July 25, 1977, The New York Times reported that the New York City Office of Economic Development was setting up "neighborhood business assistance teams" to "facilitate the reopening of businesses damaged during the blackout."  One of those new offices was located in the former Public National Bank building.

Artist and furniture designer Richard Artschwater and his wife, Catherina A. Kord, purchased the building in 1980.  They converted it into two residences--a duplex on the first and second floors, and one apartment on the third.

The former Public National Bank building was designated an individual New York City landmark in September 2008.  Jay Shockley described it in the LPC's designation report as, "a highly unusual American structure displaying the direct influence of the early-twentieth-century modernism of eminent Viennese architect/designer Josef Hoffman."

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

Old St. Patrick's Convent and Girls' School - 32-36 Prince Street

 

During British rule, Roman Catholic worship was illegal in New York City.  And although anti-Catholic sentiments were still strong after the Revolution, the Roman Catholic population was such that on April 8, 1808 the sprawling diocese of New York was created--covering all of New York State, New Jersey, and several Long Island counties.  On May 14, 1815, the first Catholic cathedral in America, St. Patrick's, was dedicated at Mulberry and Spring Streets.

Two years later, Bishop John Connolly reached out to Elizabeth Seton, the founder of the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  Hers was the first religious community of women in the United States, and in 1810 she opened St. Joseph Academy Emmitsburg.  In 1814, she sent sisters to establish an orphanage in Philadelphia.

In his 1877 A Popular History of the Catholic Church in the United States, John O'Kane Murray writes:

In 1817, Bishop Connolly, of New York...applied to the Superior-General of the Sisters of Charity, at Emmittsburg [sic], for some Sisters to take charge of an orphan asylum in his episcopal city.  The new mission was confided to the pious and zealous Sister Rose White, and two companions.  On the 13th of September they took charge of St. Patrick's Asylum, corner of Prince and Mott [sic] streets. 

Murray was mistaken regarding the original site.  The "humble" structure, as he worded, sat at Prince and Mulberry Street.  When the nuns arrived in 1817, they cared for 30 Catholic orphans.  (The purpose of a Catholic orphanage was to prevent the foundlings and orphans from "being lost to the faith" in a Protestant institution.)

In 1824, land at the corner of Prince and Mott Streets, overlooking the churchyard of St. Patrick's Cathedral, was donated by C. Heeney as a site for a permanent structure.  When Bishop John Connolly died on February 6, 1825, construction had already begun.  On October 14, The Evening Post reported on the "charity sermon" to be preached by Rev. Mr. Power two days later at St. Peter's Church on Barclay Street.  The article said, "a collection [will be] taken up, the proceeds of which will be appropriated towards building the Orphan Asylum now erecting at the corner of Prince and Mott streets."

Completed in 1826, the dignified, Federal-style structure was impressive.  The architect, whose name is lost, configured the Prince Street elevation into three sections--the end pavilions projecting forward from the five-bay section.  The three-story-and-attic structure sat upon a brick basement level trimmed with brownstone quoins.  The attic levels of the end wings were designed as triangular pediments with round windows, while the center portion sprouted three tall, handsome dormers.  

The building was faced in red Flemish bond brick.  Its brownstone-framed entrance above a wide stoop was equal to that of the finest mansions in the city.  Below an elegant, leaded fanlight, Ionic columns flanked the paneled door against wood carved to imitate stone blocks.  On either side of the leaded sidelights, half-columns disappeared into the wall. 

On the Mott Street side, two prominent chimneys flanked the central gable, which incorporated an arched window.  At the base of the chimneys at this level were two blind quarter-round openings.

On Thanksgiving day 1828, the diocese published a plea in The Evening Post that said in part, "the wants of the Asylum are very pressing; during the coming winter there will be nearly ninety orphans to provide for, and when it is remembered that those are both fatherless and motherless, and have no friends on earth to look to, it is hoped this appeal in their behalf will be favourably [sic] received."

The article said that the Managers of the Orphan Asylum would open the building to the public the following day as "an opportunity of judging of its merit...At the same time, they will have an opportunity to examine the establishment throughout, and to obtain every information respecting the economy and regularity thereof."

The needs for the Orphan Asylum grew rapidly.  The sisters who cared and housed 30 orphans in 1817 were the wards of 140 children by January 1833.  

Four years later, the 11-year-old structure was threatened with demolition.  The aldermen considered a serious proposal in November 1837 that would extend Centre Street northward to meet the Bowery at the intersection of Bleecker Street.  The Street Committee favored the plan, saying it "would affect property less disadvantageously" than other proposals.  Nevertheless, one property that would be disadvantageously affected was the Orphan Asylum, which sat directedly in the path of the project.

At the meeting of the Board of Assistant Aldermen on November 20, 1837, it was decided that the Asylum was more valuable than the Centre Street project.  The minutes noted that the plot that C. Heeney had donated was "for the purposes of an Orphan Asylum, so long as it shall be so applied."  So, were the building demolished, the property would revert to Heeney, "and prove a total loss to the Asylum."  The committee declined the proposition.

And still the population of the Orphan Asylum continued to grow.  On March 9, 1838, the institution's treasurer, John B. Lasala, announced in the Morning Herald, "The public is respectfully informed that there are at present in this Asylum nearly two hundred orphan children, depending entirely on the generosity of our fellow citizens."

By 1845, Archbishop John Hughes recognized the need for two separate facilities--a boys' and a girls' orphanage.  The Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum for boys was completed in 1851 on Fifth Avenue and 51st Street.  The Prince Street Asylum was now a girls-only facility.  On June 15, 1859, a visitor from The New York Times described his visit, saying in part:

There are four apartments used as school-rooms, one of which, for the larger girls, has been newly furnished within two weeks, and is very neat and convenient.  There are two dormitories, capable of lodging fifty children each; they were scrupulously neat, and well ventilated.  The Infirmary, happily, has not, at present, one patient in it.  The Chapel, which is on the Mott-street side of the house, is well adapted for the use of the inmates.  Mass is performed every morning, at which all the children attend.  There are now three hundred and twenty little girls here between the ages of four and thirteen, whose cheerful faces and neatly clothed persons indicate that they are very happy in the care of the sisters of Charity.

The 69th Regiment of the New York State Militia, known as the "Fighting Irish," marched past the Prince Street Asylum (left) in 1861 as they departed to fight in the Civil War.  (At the right is the graveyard of St. Patrick's Cathedral.)  from D. T. Valentine's Manuel, 1862 (copyright expired)

A horrific accident occurred here on April 9, 1868.  Margaret Brown, who was 14 years old, was alone in the refectory that morning.  Somehow, her clothes caught fire from a candle.  Before help could arrive, she was burned to death.

On May 10, 1884, two girls, Teresa Flanigan and Lizzie Girr, 15 and 19 years old respectively, "escaped," as worded by The New York Times.  They made their way to Harlem to find Teresa's aunt, but were unsuccessful.  They gave up and decided to return to the orphanage.  On the way, they coincidentally encountered Thomas Flanigan.  The 40-year-old had previously worked at the orphanage as an engineer (i.e., the worker who tends the furnace and similar tasks.)  The New York Times reported, "He dissuaded them, saying that they would be beaten, and offered to get them situations."

His intentions for the naïve girls, however, were despicable.  He took the teens to the Mount Morris Hotel at 113rd Street and Third Avenue, registering as "Callahan and daughters."  There he sexually assaulted Teresa.  Astoundingly, two days later two relentless police officers tracked down the girls.  Flanigan was arrested and brought to the Essex Market Police Court on June 18.  There, Lizzie testified, "that Flanigan had assaulted her too, but failed," according to The New York Times.  The predator was jailed without bail and the two girls were sent to the House of Refuge.

In 1886, the orphanage was renovated to the St. Patrick's Convent and Girls' School.  Two years later, on August 31, 1888, the New-York Tribune reminded readers, "The property at Prince and Mott sts., known formerly as the Orphan Asylum, is now used by the children of the female department of St. Patrick's parochial school."

The unflappable Sisters of Charity, accustomed to handling orphans and school children, were not shaken by a mere explosion early on the morning of September 7, 1896.  The New York Times reported, "There were fourteen nuns in the building at the time, but they were in no way frightened by the incident and remained in the house."

The explosion happened in the kitchen when a pipe burst, "tearing a hole in the ceiling and half flooding the apartment with water," and igniting a fire, said the article.  A policeman on the street heard the blast and rushed in, then sent an alarm to the fire department.  Before the fire fighters arrived, the fire "was put out with pails of water."  The Times said, "The sisters in the house were all aroused from their sleep, but only the Superior left her room."

By the early decades of the 20th century, the school admitted boys, as well.  Among the students at mid-century was future filmmaker Martin Scorsese.  As the demographics of the neighborhood changed, the student body included students whose language at home included English, Spanish and Chinese.  Reportedly, as the turn of the century approached, more than 90 percent of the students came from families below the national poverty level.

By 1966, the building had been painted white.  Higgins Quasebarth and Partners LLC via The New York Times.

In 2009, the enrollment of what was now known as Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral School had dropped to just 129 students.  In June the following year, the Archdiocese closed the venerable facility.  

The Archdiocese of New York placed the landmarked structure on the market on December 24, 2013 for $29 million.  On September 4, 2014, Diane Pham, writing in 6sqft, reported that Time Equities had purchased the property for $32 million. "Plans to turn the school into condos have been in the works since October 2013," she wrote.  A second developer, said the article, had joined Time Equities to renovate the building "into two single-family homes and eight luxury condos."

Surviving Federal and later Victorian period interior details were ripped out in the gut renovation.  (Although the building was designated an individual New York City landmark in 1966, its interiors were not similarly protected.)  A four- and six-story addition was erected in the rear.  In the building that once housed indigent orphans are now luxury residences with four or five bedrooms, one of which has 23-foot ceilings in some rooms.

photographs by the author

The 1896 Association of the Bar - 38-42 West 44th Street

 

photograph by Epigenius

As the exclusivity of Fifth Avenue spilled down the side streets in the second half of the 19th century, that was not the case for West 44th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.  Instead, it developed into what was called a "stable block"--lined with private carriage houses, livery and streetcar stables.  Change came in the last decade, as gentlemen's clubs and one exclusive school, the Berkeley School for Boys, transformed the block.

In 1875, five years after its founding, the Bar Association of New York erected its building at 5-7 West 29th Street.  Two decades later, the association addressed its increased membership that overtaxed the old building and the migration of clubs northward.  On May 4, 1895, the Record & Guide reported that the Bar Association of New York had purchased the Sixth Avenue Railroad Company's "three-story brick dwelling with three-story brick car stables" at 38 to 42 West 44th Street.  The significant price, $203,550, would translate to a startling $7.6 million in 2025.

Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz's rendering.  Munsey's Magazine, October 1899 (copyright expired)

Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz, son of influential architect Leopold Eidlitz, was given the commission for the design of the new headquarters.  His training in Germany is reflected in his Classic Eclectic-style design, called by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, "severe."  The limestone facade is clearly defined by dentiled intermediate cornices, the second floor of which is embellished with an ornamental frieze.  Double-height, paired Corinthian pilasters divide the third and fourth floors into three bays.

The American Architect & Building News, July 2, 1898 (copyright expired)

The narrower elevation on West 43rd Street was no less impressive, with engaged, fluted Ionic columns dominating the upper section.

The 43rd Street elevation, seen here in 1900.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

As the structure neared completion, on September 20, 1896, The New York Times praised, "One of the most interesting and successful works of recent architecture is the new building of the Bar Association, in West Forty-fourth Street.  That it is so is due to the liberality and intelligence of the association, as well as to the skill of its architect, Mr. Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz."

The building was opened on the evening of October 8, 1896.  The New York Times reported, "The building, beautiful and impressive in its Ionic simplicity, was admired by all."  The journalist described the interiors as being decorated in "the most modern manner," detailing:

Its wood, mosaic, and marble floors are in the latest styles, its hangings are rich and heavy, its carpets are the finest from the looms, its library is renowned for its completeness, and its accommodations for its members are all that could be desired.

While the interiors smacked of an exclusive social club, this was a working venue.  The New York Times remarked, "It does not need a kitchen and a dining room...It needed a place which could be resorted to at all times for purposes of study and research and a place in which the members could all 'assemble and meet together' on occasions."

The entrance as seen in 1896. photo by Wurts Bros. from Munsey's Magazine, October 1899 (copyright expired)

...and as it appears today.  photo by Pattonnh, December 10, 2010

Most important to the members were the 90-foot-long library--which contained 50,000 volumes--the top floor "trial room," and the meeting hall, which had seating for 1,500.  "Desks, tables, and all the paraphernalia that are necessary to aid lawyers in finding conclusive precedents and Judges in deciding argued cases abound--with an abundance of attendants to do the searchers' bidding," said The Times.

The building of the Association of the Bar was the scene of weighty hearings and discussions.  On February 1, 1870, Samuel J. Tilden had explained the need of the association, saying in part, "If the bar is to be merely an institution that seeks to win cases and to win them by back-door access to the judiciary, then it is not only degraded, but it is corrupt."  Tilden stressed its importance to reform the Constitution, the judiciary and make "the administration of justice made pure and honorable."

The Meeting Hall (top) and the Reception Hall.  photos by Pattonhn.

In August 1909, a committee appointed by President William Howard Taft met here "to consider methods of strengthening the Sherman Anti-Trust law," as reported by The Evening Post.  (President Taft's brother, Henry Waters Taft, incidentally, would be president of the Association of the Bar of City of New York from 1923 to 1925.)

Important hearings took place here in 1934 as part of an investigation of Nazi operations in America.  On June 29, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Congressman Samuel Dickstein had charged, "that the Henry Street Settlement was assisting members of a lower East Side Communist organization," saying it "grew out of an investigation he made recently into Communist activities in connection with the Congressional committee probe into Nazi propaganda in the United States."  The article said, the congressman would resume his "one man hearings of Nazi subversion" at the Bar Association Building.

The Trial Room as it appeared in 1925.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Four months later, on October 19, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, 

German Ambassador Hans Luther is serving as an agent of the Nazi Party in the United States, charged Congressman John W. McCormack, chairman of the Congressional Committee investigating subversive and un-American activities, in a statement preceding a closed session of the Committee at the Bar Association building, 42 West Forty-fourth street yesterday.

On February 3, 1970, in reporting on the upcoming centennial of the organization, The New York Times remarked, "Since its founding by 200 lawyers to fight corruption in the courts in the days when Boss Tweed controlled Tammany Hall, the city bar association has attracted many of the most distinguished lawyers in the country."  The article said those attorneys had drafted Federal legislation, advised on the appointments of judges, and appeared at hearings and symposiums.  Among the speakers at the centennial here were Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay.

The passionate stances of some members of the Association of the Bar occasionally went beyond hearings and discussions.  On May 14, 1970, for instance, Francis T. P. Plimpton, president of the Association, announced that more than 1,000 New York city lawyers would walk off the job to go to Washington to urge "immediate withdrawal from Indochina." 

And on March 26, 1971, The New York Times reported, "A group of women lawyers and law students took over an open meeting of the Bar of the City of New York last night in what one demonstrator called 'a lawyerlike way' to denounce the association for 'male chauvinist' attitudes."

The well-publicized Knapp Commission hearings took place here starting on October 18, 1971.  They followed a year-long investigation in corruption within the New York City Police Department.

After the attacks on the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York offered its offices "to firms affected by the attack," as reported by The New York Times on September 13.  A spokesperson, Andrew Martin, explained, "There's not a whole lot we can do, but our building is the biggest asset we have."

photograph by ajay_suresh

Known today as the New York City Bar, the association continues to occupy its 1896 headquarters.  In designating the edifice an individual New York City landmark, the Landmarks Preservation Commission deemed it, "a fine building with dignity and strength in its imposing façade, worthy of the distinguished legal body that uses it."