The Richard Grant White House - 118 East 10th Street

 

In 1861, Richard Grant White moved his family into the newly built house at 186 Tenth Street (renumbered 118 East 10th Street in 1867).  It sat upon a triangular parcel of land purchased by Matthias Banta from the Stuyvesant family in 1854.  Banta's architect (most historians attribute the homes to James Renwick, Jr.) had to deal with the irregular plots, resulting in the five-story-and-basement houses ranging from 16- to 32-feet-wide and from 16- to 48-feet deep.  The Anglo-Italianate-style homes were completed in 1861, the year the Whites purchased their new residence.

Like its neighbors, the rusticated brownstone basement and first floor of the White house sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in sandstone.  The tall, fully-arched windows of the second floor were connected by a stone bandcourse.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.

Born in 1822, Richard Grant White was a globally recognized Shakespearean scholar.  He traced his American ancestry to John White, a founder of Cambridge, Massachusetts and of Hartford, Connecticut.  Although he studied medicine and law (he was admitted to the bar in 1845), by the time he purchased the Tenth Street house, he was the musical critic for The Courier and Enquirer, and had already published his 1854 Shakespeare's Scholar and the 1859 Essay on the Authorship of the Three Parts of Henry VI.  He would be described by the 1901 New York University; Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics as, "one of the foremost literary and musical critics of his date."

Richard Grant White, from the 1901 New York University; Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics (copyright expired)

Grant was married to Alexina Black Mease on October 16, 1850.  The couple had two sons, Richard Mansfield, born in 1851 and named after Grant's father; and Stanford, born in 1853.

The parlor of the East 10th Street house was most likely the scene of lively artistic discussions.  Among Richard G. White's acquaintances were Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frederick Law Olmsted, and John LaFarge.  It may have been those gatherings that sparked young Stanford White's interest in architecture.

The outbreak of the Civil War affected Richard White's career, at least temporarily.  In 1861 he was appointed Chief of the United States Revenue-Marine (later the U.S. Coast Guard).  He would serve in that post until 1878.

In the meantime, Stanford White pursued a career in architecture.  With no formal training, he became an apprentice in the office of Henry Hobson Richardson in 1871 at the age of 18.  While his professional life progressed (he would become Richardson's principal assistant), the young man's personal lifestyle was a concern to his parents.  Mary Cummings, in her Saving Sin City, says Stanford White and his friends "preferred the company of models and chorus girls to that of dowagers and debutantes."  She writes:

He was living with his family at 118 East 10th Street but seldom came home.  One night he was hurrying off in swallowtail and knee breeches to a society event, the next he was headed for the libidinous downtown wilds, leaving his father to lament that he was absent at breakfast, rarely present at dinner, and then after dinner "he don't stop at home more than ten to fifteen minutes but is off to the Benedick."

Stanford White, photograph by George Cox, ca 1892 (copyright expired)

Stanford White left East 10th Street in 1878 for a year-and-a-half tour of Europe.  When he returned in 1879, he joined Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead to form McKim, Mead and White.  His parents had sold 118 East 10th Street to Charles Nicholson the previous year.  They moved to 330 East 17th Street where Richard Grant White died on April 5, 1885.  In reporting on his death, The New York Times called him a "variously accomplished man."

The house was owned by two more owners in quick succession.  After William L. Stow purchased it for $14,000 in October 1884 (about $462,000 in 2026), the dwelling was operated as a boarding house. 

Among the residents in 1886 was singer Louise Pauline, described by The Sun as the "prima donna of the Carlton Opera Company."  In May that year, the company took the production of The Bohemian Girl to Philadelphia.  The New York Times reported that on May 29, "just before the curtain rose on the first act," Louise fainted.  She was taken to her dressing room where her costume was removed by two other singers.  Louise would later say, "They took $1,500 which was concealed in my bodice, and gave it to the stage manager, Mr. [Charles] Fais, for safe keeping."  (It was an astounding amount of cash to be hidden in one's underclothes--equal to about $51,000 today.)

Upon returning to 118 East 10th Street, Louise Pauline asked Fais for her money.  "He gave it all back except $90," she told the courts.  He could not explain the shortfall, "and offered to return to Philadelphia and investigate," reported The New York Times.  After waiting a week, Louise had Charles Fais arrested.  The Times said, "When taken into custody, however, he offered to make good the loss."

The boarders continued to be respectable, for the most part.  In 1890 they included Mary E. Brady, a teacher in the primary department of Grammar School No. 30.  Edward Bagwell and Frank Tuttle also lived here at the time.   

On July 8, 1890, The Evening World reported on the stifling heat wave, predicting, "Old Sol is rendering himself liable for malicious mischief to-day."  The previous day, the "malicious mischief" of the dangerous heat resulted in 39-year-old Edward Bagwell's collapsing on a Christopher Street streetcar.  He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital for treatment.

Later that year, on the night of September 3, Frank Tuttle was walking along the corner of Bond Street and the Bowery when he "lurched against" Jack Ashton and "made an impolite remark."  The World reported, "Mr. Ashton returned a merry response and Mr. Tuttle, unfortunately, took that as an evidence of weakness, so he rushed rudely forward and attempted to toss Mr. Ashton into the air."  Tuttle had chosen the wrong man to attack.  The article said, 

But Mr. Ashton is as quick with his fists as he is at repartee, and he dealt Mr. Tuttle that which is known at Bond street and the Bowery as a "biff on the kisser."  Mr. Tuttle made a second attempt, and, this time, instead of being the thrower, he became the throwee.

A passing policeman arrested both men.  At the station house, neither wanted to make a complaint.  The World ended its article saying, "In a few moments that entente cordiale which should always exist between gentlemen was re-established, and the snowy dove of peace cooed and spread her pin-feathers over the happy little group."

Annie Nicholson operated the boarding house at the time.  She proved to be more than a match for 25-year-old Joseph Braham on the night of February 6, 1893.  Described by The Evening World as a "sneak thief," he attempted to leave the house that night with a $60 overcoat.  Annie Nicholson thought not.  She overpowered the young man and held him until a policeman arrived and arrested him.

Boarding here that year was actress Ella Dunbar who was playing the leading female role in A Winning Hand.  The company went on the road on October 16, 1893, but the reviews were devastating.  Just over a week later, she was back.  With no receipts, the cast did not get paid and Ella had to leave her jewelry with the hotel as a guarantee for her room fare.  Additionally, she had to put up the check for her trunk with the railroad for her passage.

At the turn of the century, the neighborhood had declined.  The condition was reflected in the change in boarders.  Margaret Delahunty worked at the Hot Air Club at 7 East 22nd Street within the notorious Tenderloin district.  On November 6, 1904, undercover officers entered the nightclub.  The Sun reported that 27-year-old Margaret Delahunty and 21-year-old Mable Miller, "stepped out on an improvised stage and began to sing and dance.  The crowd voted the performance slow."

One of the women replied, "Think so? Well, there!" and kicked off her slipper.  "In the course of the next five minutes the performers removed one garment after another."  Responding to a call from the officers, "a squad of Tenderloin sleuths rushed in and arrested everybody."  

George Berger and his family occupied rooms here in 1911.  A clerk, according to him, he was having problems supporting his family.  On the afternoon of June 21, he sneaked into the apartment of W. J. R. Johnston, a magazine writer, at 215 West 108th Street.  Mrs. Johnston returned home to find him there.

"I guess I got into the wrong apartment," he said.

"I am sure you did," she answered.  

The woman confronting him was no retiring housewife.  "Take off that coat and let me see what property of mine you've got in your pockets," she demanded.  The Sun reported, "She called for help and the neighbors began to arrive.  They found the man backed up against the wall with Mrs. Johnston guarding him."

Police officer Murrell arrived with his gun drawn.  Mrs. Johnston realized that she was dealing with a meek, inexperienced burglar.  "You can put that gun back in your pocket," she said, "He's perfectly harmless."

More experienced in burglary was Harry Stein, a 26-year-old roomer who listed his profession as a salesman.  On August 16, 1916, he was arrested during a burglary in the Bronx with two accomplices.  The New-York Tribune reported that Stein tried to escape, but "a shot into the air stopped" him.

When Stein got out of jail, he returned to 118 East 10th Street and to his life of crime.  On October 1, 1916, he appeared in court to plead guilty of another burglary.  The Evening World said he and his accomplice had "long police records."

By the end of World War I, the rooming house was operated by a Mrs. Lewis.  A woman who gave her name as Helen Curtis took a room in 1920.  According to Mrs. Lewis, she left at the beginning of summer "to take a position as checker in a tea room."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

On September 23, old Helen Bolger was admitted to the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital.  She gave her address as 118 East 10th Street.  During a throat operation that night, she died.  The 24-year-old was the wife of a merchant mariner, Thomas Bolger, who had just returned from sea.  In a bizarre turn of events, Helen Bolger and Helen Curtis were the same woman and why she was living in Mrs. Lewis's rooming house under an assumed name is a mystery.

On June 9, 1958, The New York Times reported that 118 East 10th Street had been purchased by S. P. Sloane and Lloyd Hauser.  "They plan to modernize the building into ten apartments," said the article.  Instead, the renovations resulted in just four apartments--a duplex in the basement and first floor, one apartment each on the second and third, and a duplex in the fourth and fifth floor.

Among the residents in the early 1970s were Huibert Zuur and Edward J. Austin.  The young men had worked together for Halston for some years.  In 1973, they launched their own women's clothing line: Austin-Zuur.  On September 9, 1974, Enid Now reported in The New York Times, "The partners show their collection in their glass, brick and wicker duplex apartment at 118 East 10th Street."

From the exterior, the house where one of the world's greatest Shakespearean scholars and one of America's greatest architects lived for decades is little changed since 1861.

photographs by the author

The William Sackett Jr. House - 123 East 10th Street

123 East 10th Street (left) is identical to its next door neighbor.

Once part of Director General Peter Stuyvesant's farm, or bouwerij, the block of East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues saw an explosion of development in the early 185os.  Robert and Franny Carnley moved into a newly built house at 191 Tenth Street and in 1854 Robert erected two matching homes next door at 193 and 195 (they would be renumbered 123 and 125 East 10th Street in 1865).

Four stories tall and two bays wide above a low basement, their rusticated first floors held fully arched openings.  Full-width cast iron balconies fronted the second floor windows.  The red brick-faced upper floors featured elliptically arched openings with molded stone lintels.

Carnley originally rented 193 Tenth Street.  His first tenants were the family of James P. Harper, a grocer, who remained through 1857.  They were replaced by the Kendall family.  Merchant Joseph A. Kendall operated an enterprise at 30 Barclay Street and Rufus W. Kendall ran a dry goods business on Vesey Street.

On January 20, 1864, the Carnleys' daughter, Frances (known as Fanny), married William H. Sackett, Jr.  The couple initially moved into the Carnley house, but by 1866 they owned and occupied 123 East 10th Street next door.  Sackett operated a furniture business at 397 Eighth Avenue.

Like many families, the Sacketts took in a boarder.  Living with the family in 1868 was Luke Wisely.  He unwisely decided to take a swim in the East River at the foot of East 17th Street on July 2 that year.  The New York Times reported that he "undressed himself to bathe...and on jumping in struck his head on a rock, sustaining severe injuries."  Wisely was taken to Bellevue Hospital and it appears he recovered.

Later that year, in December, William and Fannie welcomed a son, Robert Carnley Sackett.  Tragically, the boy died at the age of one-and-a-half on June 23, 1870.  His funeral was held in the house two days later.  (The couple would have two other children, Emma Carnley and Isabel Thompson Sackett.)

The Sacketts left 123 East 10th Street in 1871, but retained ownership.  The Donoho family occupied it in 1872.  Sisters Mary and Margaret, who were 25 and 28 years old respectively, worked in Archer & Anderson's bookbindery at 81-85 Centre Street.

At 5:20 on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1872, a fire broke out in the Centre Street building.  On December 26, The New York Times reported, "It was hoped that all had been rescued from the building by the firemen, police, and others, who were soon on the spot, but there now seems no reason to doubt that seven or eight persons lost their lives."  The girls' brother, John Donoho, searched at the Franklin Street Police Station and the Park Hospital for the women with no success.  Four days after the inferno, the New York Herald reported that the Donoho sisters were among the seven bodies still not recovered from the ruins.

The following year, the Barker family rented the house.  William H. Barker worked in City Hall, as did Edward P. Barker, who was a deputy park commissioner.  (Edward was appointed in 1858 with an annual salary of $480, or about $19,000 in 2026.)  William J. Barker listed his profession as a clerk in 1873, but ran a storage business on Washington Street by 1876.

The Barkers remained here at least through 1880.  The house saw a rapid succession of renters until Dr. Richard W. Muller moved in around 1892.  Born in 1860, he was considered a specialist in diseases of the scalp and hair.  

Muller originally rented at least one room in the house and his first tenant was Charles Moehling, described by The New York Times as "a well-educated and highly-cultured German."  Moehling was the head bookkeeper at the banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co. 

If Dr. Muller was hoping for engaging conversation with his roomer, he was disappointed.  The highly-private Moehling spent his evenings in his room, studying and writing.  He contributed several lengthy articles on finance and literature to local German-language newspapers.  Muller remarked later, "in all the time Mr. Moehling was in my house, I never exchanged five minutes' conversation with him.  He lived entirely to himself, like a hermit, almost."

On the morning of February 22, 1894, Moehling left home unusually early.  Instead of going downtown to his office, he went to Central Park.  Around 11:00 that morning, Park Policeman McKenna found the body of the 50-year-old in a clump of shrubbery.  He had shot himself in the left ear with a 32-calibre pistol.  Next to the dead man was a note that read,

My name is Charles E. Moehling, and I occupy a furnished room in the house of Dr. R. W. Muller, 123 East Tenth Street.  I desire that my body be taken to Charles Diehl’s undertaking shop in Essex Street.

No one could imagine why the bookkeeper had taken his life, although Dr. Muller noted, “The servant in the house said she had noticed him several times feeling his way about the house, as if he were losing his sight, and it may be because of his failing sight and utter friendlessness that led him to take his life.”

Dr. Muller had two roomers in 1895, attorney Reginald H. McMinn and Ellen M. Coe, the head librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library.  The New York Herald described Ellen as "a handsome woman of about 45."  She was appointed head librarian when the Free Library was organized years earlier.  While living here, she met one of Muller's well-respected patients, Dr. Joseph H. Rylance, rector of the nearby St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.

Rev. Rylance's wife died in 1885.  Now, on February 15, 1895, he announced that Ellen M. Coe "would shortly become his wife," as reported in the New York Herald.  The high-profile engagement was covered in several newspapers, resulting in a barrage of reporters rushing to the Free Circulating Library.  Ellen was ready for the onslaught.  When a reporter from The Evening World attempted to interview her, "a bright-eyed, rose-checked young woman" told him, "Miss Coe wishes me to say that she is very much distressed at the publicity given to her name, and she refers inquirers to the Rev. Dr. Rylance."

Ellen Coe's marriage resulted in a vacancy.  On August 16, 1895, an advertisement in the New-York Tribune read, "Cosily furnished rooms; one or two gentlemen; conveniences, private house; reasonable."

By 1899, Dr. Daniel Cook took over the lease of 123 East 10th Street.  An 1867 graduate of the University of New York, he advertised his office hours as 8 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.  Cook's reputation earned him a well-known clientele.  On April 14, 1899, for instance, the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that boxing manager Martin Julian was in "very critical condition with typhoid pneumonia."  The article said, "This famous promoter of pugilistic events is being attended by Dr. Cooke, of No. 123 East Tenth street."

Cook remained here until June 1904 when Frances Sackett sold the house to Bernhard Schneller.  (Schneller simultaneously purchased No. 125 from Henry H. and Harriet W. Holly.)  

Schneller's first tenant was yet another physician, Dr. Alfred H. Stiebeling.  Born in 1866, Stiebeling would create headlines three decades later.  His six-year-old granddaughter would die in 1927 and on July 12, 1937 The Berkshire Eagle would title an article, "Doctor Takes Poison at Grave of Granddaughter."

In the meantime, the respectability of some occupants of 123 East 10th Street had declined.  On June 1, 1914, the New York Press reported that George Borden had been arrested as one of the four men who committed a jewel heist from an Avenue A store.

Charles Kirchman rented a room here in December 1914.  He told the landlady that his name was William Dillon and that he had just lost his job with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company.  (It is unclear why he disguised his identity.)  Three weeks later, Kirchman was still unable to find employment.  On January 25, 1915, he wrote a letter to his sister, saying in part, "My last prayer is that God will deliver my soul into a better world than the one I am leaving."  The next day, The Evening World reported, "His body was discovered to-day in the gas-filled room."

The following year, Julius Segletti occupied a room here.  On Saturday night, July 15, he took his sweetheart to a dance hall on East 8th Street.  As they prepared to leave, 22-year-old Carrol Marres approached and asked, "May I dance with your lady?"

Segletti replied, "She's too tired."

"But just one dance wouldn't harm.  May I?"

"No," replied Segletti.

Marres walked away.  Fifteen minutes later Segletti and his girlfriend left the hall.  As they walked along Avenue A between 7th and 8th Streets, Marres rushed up from behind.  He drove a knife into Segletti's head.  He died of a fractured skull in Bellevue Hospital.  Marres was captured the following day and Segletti's girlfriend, whose name was withheld, identified him as the murderer.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here at midcentury was life-long bachelor Colonel Julian Fairfax Scott.  Born in Maryland in 1877, he was a member of the New York National Guard.  In 1909, he was appointed Cleaning Commissioner in charge of the Bronx.  He died in the house on November 14, 1953.

Scott was followed at 123 East 10th Street by Dr. Edward Campbell Berger and his wife, Ethel.  An osteopathic physician, Berger graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy.  During World War II he served with the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy.  While living here he was with the administrative department of the Outpatient Service of the Osteopathic Hospital and Clinic of Le Roy Hospital.

Both 123 East 10th Street and his architectural twin have survived in remarkably pristine condition.

The venerable house was never converted to apartments and remains a single-family home today.  Its exterior appearance is essentially unchanged since 1854.

photographs by the author

The 1878 82 through 88 Horatio Street

 

photograph by Frank Hosticka

Developer John H. Selzam hired architect Theophilus G. Smith in 1878 to design four flat buildings at 82 through 88 Horatio Street.  Just one-and-a-half blocks from the riverfront, they would be home to working-class families, many of them newly arrived in America.  But unlike tenement buildings that would be built throughout Greenwich Village and the East Side, Smith did not encrust these flats with grotesque masks and shields and other over-the-top ornament.  He created a dignified marriage of the Anglo-Italianate and Renaissance Revival styles.

The buildings were 25- and 18-feet-wide.  The wider buildings cost Selzam $9,000 to erect and the others $8,000--$292,000 and $260,000 respectively in 2026.

Rounded arched windows and elliptically arched entrances distinguished the first floor, which sat a few steps above the sidewalk.  Above a molded band course, the upper four floors were faced in orange-red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The second floor windows sat atop molded sills supported by decorated brackets.  Above their paneled lintels were Renaissance-inspired pediments with similar carved brackets.  The openings of the top two floors were treated with identical elements, but without the pediments.  Elaborate, individual pressed metal cornices included paneled fascias and paired scrolled corbels and brackets.

photograph by Frank Hosticka

There were four apartments per floor.  An advertisement offered "choice apartments of two, three and four rooms."  The residents ranged from laborers to those who had at least high school educations, as was reflected in their various advertisements looking for work.  Nellie J. Duke, who lived in No. 86 in January 1891, wrote, "A young girl, experienced cashier and bookkeeper, wants employment." Another tenant in the same building placed an advertisement that same month.  "A respectable young girl as chambermaid and waitress in a private family or would do plain cooking; good references."  And another resident advertised in October 1894, "Waiter; good oyster opener; 10 years' experience; married.  Coombs, 86 Horatio Street."

Among the initial residents of No. 88 was the Scholl family.  Born in Germany, John Scholl had a wife and at least two grown daughters.  The New-York Tribune reported on February 16, 1880, "He had worked at several breweries in the Ninth Ward, but his habits of intoxication had alienated him from his wife and daughters."  They had expelled him from the apartment.

Early on the morning of February 15, Patrolman Walsh was passing some piles of lumber at West and Bethune Streets, "when he noticed the body of a man dangling by a rope between two of the piles," reported the New-York Tribune.  It was John Scholl.  The article said, "It was not known by the police where he lived recently."

Also living at No. 88 that year were Louis Gluck and his wife.  Louis and his brother, Gustavus, were carvers in the Weber piano factory.  Gustavus and his wife lived on Seventh Avenue.  On the evening of December 15, 1880, Gustavus opened a box that he kept in the bedroom and noticed that $25 was missing.  (It was a substantial amount, nearly $800 in today's terms.)  His wife told him that his step-father, Justus Schilling, had stolen it.

Gustavus informed his brother and the two of them headed to Schilling's apartment on Third Street and First Avenue.  They rousted Schilling from his bed and demanded the missing money.  Schilling called Gustavus's wife a liar.  The Sun reported that Louis, "struck him on the head with some hard instrument" and Gustavus drew a pistol.  He shot Shilling in the forehead and as the wounded man rushed from the apartment, shot him again in the back.  Gustavus fled to his brother-in-law's apartment, where he was later tracked down.  Louis was arrested in his Horatio Street apartment later that night.

Ellen Sullivan and her adult son, John, occupied an apartment in 84 Horatio Street as early as 1895.  On May 1 that year, the exasperated Ellen walked into the Charles Street station house with her son and announced, "I want to have my boy committed for a month.  He's been drinking steadily for two weeks now, and, if he is sent away for a time, he will straighten up and go to work again."

The Sun reported, "The man, who plainly showed that his mother's story was true, said he was willing to be put out of the reach of temptation."  A policeman escorted the two to the Jefferson Market Court.  As they waited to be called before Justice Taintor, Ellen wept.  Finally, Taintor called her forward and asked her to swear to the complaint.  Ellen broke down, crying, "Oh, I can't, I can't do it.  Oh, Johnny, Johnny, my boy, what made you drink?"

Suddenly, as reported by The Sun, "As she stopped speaking she clutched at her left side, staggered and fell into the arms of a court attendant."  She was carried into the hall where she died.  A court officer explained to the judge that Ellen had just died "of a broken heart."  The doctor who had been called in clarified that the cause was heart disease.

In the meantime, Ellen's body "lay in the court hall for several hours, with a red handkerchief thrown over the face," said the article.  Finally a wooden box was brought in.  The body was placed in it and the lid nailed shut.  The Sun reported that it was "removed to the dead woman's home."

At the turn of the century, Bernard and Madeline Nagel occupied an apartment on the top floor of 84 Horatio Street.  Nagel was a lithographer with the Federal Lithographing Company nearby at 91-97 Horatio Street.  Early in the morning of July 13, 1901, the couple got into a heated argument.

At around 3:00 a.m., Mary Doran, who lived below the Nagels, was awakened by Madeline's cries.  She ran upstairs to find the woman standing in the doorway, "bleeding so profusely that she was frightened and ran downstairs," as reported by The New York Times.  Madeline had been shot in the chest.

After a few minutes, Mary got the courage to return and "give her a glass of water."  Madeline needed more than a drink of water, however.  At St. Vincent's Hospital, Coroner Bausch, who did not expect her to survive, took the 44-year-old woman's ante-mortem statement.  The article said police were looking for Bernard Nagel.

82 and 84 Horatio Street in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Patrick O'Connor, who worked as a longshoreman, lived with his wife Mary and their nine-year-old son at 86 Horatio Street by 1904.  Among their neighbors was Mary Callahan and following her death in September that year they attended her funeral at Calvary Cemetery.  Like Bernard Nagel, it appears that Patrick O'Connor's differences with his wife could result in violence.

Another mourner, a young man, shared a cab back to Manhattan with them.  The New York Herald reported that O'Connor, "accused the young man of being too friendly with Mrs. O'Connor."  He ousted him from the cab "and turned on his wife," said the article.  The New York Times reported, "Then came the sounds of a struggle from the interior of the cab, interspersed with the shrieks of the woman and the frightened cries of the boy."  The cabbie, Patrick O'Brien, called a policeman to help.

The officer found Mary O'Connor, "thrown into a heap in the corner, while the son had hidden under a seat," according to The New York Times.  The New York Herald added, "Mrs. O'Connor had two puffy eyes and her gown had been almost entirely torn off.  The boy was lame and sore."

Expectedly, Patrick O'Connor was arrested.  "Mary was permitted to go home and promised to come back after her husband," said The New York Times.

In 1927, all four buildings were converted to apartments by architect Ferdinand Savignano.  It was most likely at this time that a coating of stucco was applied to the first floor facade.  Two years later, despite the ongoing Depression (or because of it), on October 31, 1929 The New York Times reported that the 70 apartments were "now 95 per cent rented."

Among the early residents of the remodeled No. 82 was fledgling playwright and actor Clifford Odets, who rented an apartment in 1933.  Born in Philadelphia in July 1906, he began as an apprentice actor with the Group Theatre led by Lee Strausberg, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman.  Margaret Brenman-Gibson, in her Clifford Odets, American Playwright: The Years from 1906 to 1940, describes the Horatio Street space as "a tiny, airless apartment."

Odets's parents, L. J. and Pearl Odets, had differing opinions on the accommodations.  Brenman-Gibson writes:

The first piece of furniture he moved into the dark, divided living room and bedroom was a large phonograph.  Pearl...arrived from Philadelphia bringing staples, cookies, and a pair of pongee curtains she had made to spruce up the airshaft window.  L. J. Odets scathingly assured her they made no difference whatever in this "hole in the wall."

Clifford Odets, Stage magazine December 1938

While living here, Odets wrote the one-act play Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!.  The successful productions of both resulted in his becoming Group Theatre's signature playwright.  He left Horatio Street in 1935.

Pleiades Fieldgrove moved into a rear fifth-floor apartment in 86 Horatio Street in July 1956.  The New York Times said that the 26-year-old had left Brooklyn "for the glamour of Greenwich Village."  One month later, on August 31, the building superintendent found her body in the courtyard behind the building.  The medical examiner said she died of a stab wound in the chest.  The Staten Island Advance added that her violent death came "apparently at the hands of a rapist."

While police questioned Edward Peter Lamp, the 72-year-old superintendent, they noticed an unusual item in his apartment--a woman's black hatbox.  Investigation revealed that Pleiades had borrowed the hat from a friend the evening before her body was discovered.  Lamp told detectives "conflicting stories about how he had come into the possession" of the box, reported The New York Times.  Lamp was arrested as a material witness.

photograph by Frank Hosticka

Other than the stucco at the first floor and the necessary fire escapes that detract from their design, 82 through 88 Horatio Street survive remarkably intact.  Theophilus G. Smith's handsome design is exceptionally refined for tenement buildings of the time.

many thanks to reader (and resident) Frank Hosticka for suggesting this post

The 1861 Claudius B. Conant House - 25 Stuyvesant Street

 

The regimented grid of the 1811 Commissioners Plan was interrupted by the diagonally-running Stuyvesant Street, originally a lane created by the Stuyvesant family to separate their two farms, Bouwerij #1 and #2.  On September 16, 1854, Matthias Banta purchased the triangular point between Stuyvesant Street and East 10th Street for development.

Generally attributed to James Renwick, Jr., Banta's five-story-and-basement Anglo-Italianate homes were completed in 1861.  They varied from 16- to 32-feet-wide and (because of the triangular plot) their depths ranged from 16- to 48-feet.  Among the narrowest was 25 Stuyvesant Street.  Like its neighbors, its rusticated brownstone basement and first floors sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in stone.  The tall, a stone bandcourse connected the fully-arched windows of the second floor.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.

Matthias Banta retained ownership of the house, leasing it originally to Margaret Madden who operated it as a boarding house.  On August 20, 1861, she advertised:

Board--At 25 Stuyvesant Street.  Second Floor of the new English basement house, a front and back Parlor, unfurnished.  Also a gentleman and his wife or two single gentlemen can be accommodated with Board.  House has all the modern improvements.  Convenient to cars and stages.

Madden's venture was relatively short-lived.  By 1863, two Fay families occupied the house.  Signourney Webster Fay was a merchant, operating at 48 Park Place, and Emery Brigham Fay was a broker.  Signourney and Emery were cousins, their fathers Nahum and Dexter Fay, respectively, were brothers.  

Born in 1814 in Southborough, Massachusetts, Emery married Almira Allton Adams in 1838.  They had five grown children.  Signourney was significantly younger than his cousin.  Emery was born in Boston in 1836 and he married Delia Almira Fay in 1860.  

The Civil War interrupted the Fays' residency here.  Signourney enlisted in the Union Army in March 1863.  Emery and Almira moved to East 7th Street and, presumably, Delia went along with them.  Upon Signorney's return from the war, he and Delia moved to Long Island.

The house was leased by the extended Claudius Buchanan Conant family.  Born in 1819, his wife was the former Elizabeth Trumbull Mills.  Living with the couple were their son, Clarence Mortimer; their daughters Elizabeth J. and Elizabeth Ann, and her husband John Richards Weed, and their son, Louis Mortimer.  

In 1866, both Clarence and Louis attended the College of the City of New York--Clarence as a junior and Louis in the Introductory Class.  Emily attended Normal College and in 1870 taught in that facility's "model school."

Also living in what must have been snug conditions was Alice Cunningham Fletcher.  In their commentary to Alice's memoir, Life Among The Indians, Joanna C. Scherer and Raymond J. DeMallie explains, "During her adolescence, family problems, the details of which have gone unrecorded, prompted her to leave home and take a position as a governess to the children of a wealthy hardware merchant, Claudius Buchanan Conant."

With the Conant children grown, Alice remained with the family, which essentially acted as her patron.  Joan T. Mark, in her A Stranger in Her Native Land, Alice Fletcher and the American Indians, writes, "Alice Fletcher's years as a governess came to an end around 1870, when she was in her early thirties.  With Claudius Conant, her former employer, still paying her a substantial salary, she [lived] at 25 Stuyvesant Street on Manhattan and set out to explore the cultural life of New York City.

While living here, Alice became highly involved with women's causes.  An article in the New York Herald on October 15, 1873, reported on the Woman's Congress, which the newspaper sarcastically said was composed of "about 120 'earnest' ladies, upon whom 'missions' have devolved."  The article noted, "The secretary of the Woman's Congress is Miss C. Fletcher, No. 25 Stuyvesant street."

While still living here, she turned to anthropology and ethnology, making extensive trips to the West to study Native American culture.  

Alice Cunningham Fletcher with Chief Joseph at the Nez Percé Lapwai Reservation in Idaho in 1889.  The man on the left is James Stuart, Alice's interpreter.  from the collection of the Smithsonian Institute.

Alice C. Fletcher became one of the most influential anthropologists studying Native Americans and helped write the Daws Act of 1887, which eliminated reservations and distributed communal land to individual households.

Claudius Buchanan Conant died in 1877.  By 1880, Clarence Mortimer Conant was a physician with his medical office in the house.  The family left in 1887 and the Banta family leased it to a proprietor who operated it as a rooming house.  A succinct advertisement in The Sun on August 1, 1888 offered, "To Let--Newly furnished rooms, suitable for one or two, near 3d av. and 9th st. elevated station."

By the turn of the century, the neighborhood had decidedly declined.  No. 25 Stuyvesant Street was leased by Flanagan Bros., the offices of which were on West 34th Street.  They sublet it to Annie Russell, a.k.a. Sadie Brown, who purportedly rented rooms.  Her operation was much more than that, however.

Living here in 1901 was 21-year-old Alma Cirnicer.  She worked closely with Meyer Rosenthal, who ran the Rosedale Hotel at 395 Bowery, to fleece naive "customers."  That summer Kai Bronsted, a lawyer from Copenhagen, had been visiting friends in Brooklyn.  On August 26, his last night in New York, he "determined to inspect the Bowery," as he explained to police.  He said he met Alma "and accompanied her to the Rosedale Hotel, where he was robbed of $59," reported The Evening World.

Bronsted complained to Rosenthal, who pretended to help.  They found Alma at Third Street and the Bowery where she handed him his empty wallet.  As they were arguing, Detective Penz happened by and arrested Alma and Rosenthal.

At the time, the house where Alma Cirnicer lived was on the police investigators' watch list.  A 1901 police report listed 25 Stuyvesant Street among "suspicious houses of prostitution."  And on March 7, 1902, Edward Bicherer signed a deposition saying he had visited 25 Stuyvesant Street several times and found that "Annie Russell did unlawfully keep a place...for persons to visit for unlawful sexual intercourse, and for lewd, obscene and indecent purposes."

Annie Russell was charged for running a disorderly house...

and there unlawfully procure and permit as well men and women of evil name and fame and of dishonest conversation, to visit, frequent and come together for unlawful sexual intercourse and for purpose of prostitution and there unlawfully and willfully did permit said men and women of evil name and fame there to be and remain drinking, dancing, fighting, disturbing the peace, whoring and misbehaving themselves.

On March 29, 1902, Flanagan Bros. received a letter from the Police Department that said in part, "You are hereby notified that your tenant, Sadie Brown, in the premises 25 Stuyvesant Street, was convicted of the crime of keeping and maintaining a disorderly house."  The letter demanded that if the tenant was not evicted immediately, the matter would be forwarded to the District Attorney.

The threat was successful.  Flanagan Bros. did not renew its lease and in March 1904, Emil Neufeld took over.  His roomers, many of them German immigrants, were hard working and respectable.

A roomer leans in the doorway of 25 Stuyvesant Street in 1941.  At the left is the 1803 Stuyvesant-Fish house.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The estate of Eliza A. Banta sold the house in 1925 to Jacob Bellak, who continued to rent rooms.  It quickly became the scene of a disturbing incident.  In October 1926, the body of Catherine Braum was found "hanging from the ceiling of a room at 25 Stuyvesant Street," according to The New York Times.  The death was reported as a suicide, but neighbors thought there was foul play involved.  They insisted that the 65-year-old had been poisoned and her body staged as a suicide.  Faced with mounting pressure, the District Attorney's Office ordered that Braum's body be exhumed for an autopsy.  (Frustratingly, newspapers did not report the findings.)

Another shocking incident occurred on April 2, 1939.  That morning, the Rev. Francis X. Quinn of the Church of the Guardian Angel was invited to a housewarming party at Eighth Avenue and 22nd Street.  "Instead of going to this party in a limousine I found myself traveling in a police car," he told reporters later.

At 25 Stuyvesant Street, 23-year-old John Naumo was holding an elderly couple "as hostages in an effort to stave off capture by police," as reported by the Long Island Star-Journal.  Quinn said he "arrived at the apartment an unwelcome visitor."

Naumo pointed his gun at the priest and said, "Come in father--with your hands up."  The desperate suspect and the cool-headed cleric talked at length.  Finally, said the newspaper, "After more than an hour of drama and suspense, during which the bandit asked the priest to get a glass and a bottle of beer from the icebox, the priest induced the bandit to surrender."

Through it all, 25 Stuyvesant Street was never converted to apartments.  When it was offered for sale in 2011, realtor photographs revealed that the 1861 interiors were remarkably intact.

A photograph of the parlor in 2011 shows an original marble Italianate mantel and intricate ceiling plasterwork.  via Brown Harris and Stevens realty

The house was purchased by award winning journalist and author Nina Munk.  Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair among others.  She sold it in 2016 for $6.5 million.  

photographs by the author

The 1855 Peter Gibson House - 139 East 18th Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

By the end of the 1840s, Gramercy Square (known today as Gramercy Park), was ringed with fine mansions.  Its refined tenor spilled into the neighboring blocks, and in 1855 D. Hennessy completed five brick faced houses two blocks away, on the north side of East 18th Street between Third Avenue and Irving Place.

Four stories tall above short basements, they were just two bays wide.  The segmentally arched openings wore handsome cast iron lintels, chosen from a local foundry's catalog.  Each house had its own bracketed cornice.

Among them was 106 East 18th Street (renumbered 139 in 1865).  It became home to builder Peter Gibson and his family.  

The family briefly took in a roomer in 1857.  Their advertisement in the New-York Tribune on September 29 read, "106 East 18th-st., near Irving-place--One or two nicely-furnished rooms or two handsome parlors, to let to gentlemen only, without board, in a modern-built house, with a private family."  The ad was answered by James M. Hamilton, a retired merchant.  It appears that the Gibsons valued their privacy more than the income, and no other roomer was listed after 1857.

The Gibson family moved to 132 East 19th Street in 1859 and the 18th Street house became home to Gustave Herter and his wife, Anna.  Herter listed his profession as, "furniture, 547 Broadway."  It did not reflect his talents.

Born in Germany in 1830, he and his half-brother, Christian Augustus Ludwig Herter, who was nine years younger than he, learned cabinetmaking from their father.  Gustave Herter arrived in New York City in 1848 and established his furniture-making shop.  Around the time that he and Anna purchased 106 East 18th Street, Christian arrived in New York and joined the business, renaming it Herter Brothers around 1864.

Herter Brothers designed and manufactured high-end furniture.  Their remarkable pieces both followed and set fashionable trends, and caught the eye of America's wealthiest patrons.  By the late 1860s, they not only created the furnishings of America's mansions, but decorated the rooms around them.  When President Ulysses S. Grant and First Lady Julia Grant moved into the White House in 1869, they commissioned Herter Brothers to redecorate the Executive Mansion.

This illustration titled "A Corner in the Drawing Room" shows a portion of Herter Brothers' furniture and decoration of William Henry Vanderbilt's Fifth Avenue mansion. Mr. Vanderbilt's House and Collection, 1883 (copyright expired)

By 1873, Herter Brothers was, perhaps, the foremost furniture maker and interior design firm in the country.  With their success came affluence.  That year Gustave and Anna left 139 East 18th Street.  Their furnishings--no doubt all of which came from the Herter Brothers workrooms--were sold at auction on April 16 and among the offerings were, "fine Parlor, Chamber [i.e, bedroom], Library, Hall, Dining Room and Kitchen" furniture, described by the auctioneer as "elegant."

The house was briefly operated as a boarding house until Dr. William W. Hurd, a dentist, moved in in 1876.  Hurd and his family remained until 1884, when Richard Cary Morse purchased 139 East 18th Street.  

Richard Cary Morse, from the collection of the Springfield College Archives.

Born in Hudson, New York on September 19, 1841, Morse was a nephew of inventor Samuel F. B. Morse.  Although he studied at the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries, he never pursued active ministry.  In 1869, he became involved with the Y.M.C.A.

On June 21, 1883, Morse married Jane Elizabeth Van Cott.  She would regularly be hostess to Y.M.C.A. leaders.  In his autobiography, My Life With Young Men, for instance, Morse writes:

In 1884, and several succeeding years, the Secretaries, on coming to the city for the annual dinner, spent the day in our home at 139 East 18th Street...The morning and afternoon were spent in our parlor and library on the second floor, going over each man's work for the year past, and the program of his department for the coming year.

Richard and Jane Morse remained here until around 1898, after which 139 East 18th Street was operated as a boarding house.  It was run by Mrs. Mollie Galler by 1917.

Two boarders who arrived in 1919 had much in common.  With the war ended, former soldier Antonio de Blaza returned to New York.  He took a room here and found a job as a porter in the Hilliard Building, an office building at 55 John Street.  And in August, Army Sergeant Ernest W. Gooch rented a room.   A native of Indiana, he had been reassigned to the Army Recruiting Office at East 14th Street and Third Avenue.

Sergeant Gooch was dealing with dark demons.  Four weeks after moving in, on September 15, 1919, Gooch committed suicide by shooting himself in his room.   The New-York Tribune reported, "Two sealed letters addressed to his company commander were found."

Another tragedy occurred a month later.  On October 17, The Sun reported that Antonio de Blaza "was caught between the elevator and the shaft opening on the first floor landing" at his job.  "Firemen were called to extricate him, but before he was released he was dead."  The article mentioned, "He was unmarried and had recently returned from service overseas."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Luke Chess, who rented a room here in 1921, worked as a mechanical engineer for the Standard Oil Company.  In the early hours of September 13, he was awakened by a knock on his door.  Two men and a woman "demanded his jewelry," according to Chess.  The would-be robbers were unprepared for his reaction.  

Suspicious of the unexpected visit in the middle of the night, Chess had pulled out his revolver before answering the door.  The New York Times reported, "Clad in pajamas, Luke Chess...chased two men and a woman from his apartment at 139 East Eighteenth Street early yesterday and fired several shots after them."  One of the men escaped, but Gladys Kaufman and Charles Banno were apprehended.

Seven days later two another residents appeared in the newspapers, for a much different reason.  On September 30, 1921, the Daily Star reported that the four men responsible for the theft of ten automobiles recently had been arrested.  Among them was "James Stapleton, alias Rogers, alias Frisco, of 139 East Eighteenth street, Manhattan," said the article.  Another gang member, James Hall, who also lived here, was already in jail, "having admitted committing three hold-ups in Manhattan."

John Cole, who lived here in 1937, worked at the Horn & Hardart Automat at 115 East 14th Street.  He was on the picket line outside on Christmas night that year when he and another striker, George Russo, became annoyed with the police officers, "calling them 'rats and finks' and causing a crowd of more than 500 to gather, after they had been warned to desist," reported The New York Times on December 29.  The fingerprints of both men revealed that they had previous convictions.  Their calling officers derogatory names landed them in the workhouse for 60 days.

photograph by Carole Teller

A renovation completed in 1989 resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and first floors, two duplexes that shared the second and third floors, and one apartment on the fourth.  The configuration was amended in 2010 when the top three floors were combined as a triplex apartment.

many thanks to reader Carole Teller for suggesting this post