Emery Roth's 1931 Southgate - 400 East 52nd Street

 

In 1920, a stalwart group of wealthy Manhattanites embarked on a risky and somewhat shocking real estate endeavor--transforming a block of decrepit brownstones along the East River into a fashionable enclave.  Originally called Sutton Square, its high-tone tenor spread outward, creating Sutton Place and Beekman Place, two of the most enviable residential districts in the city.

Real estate developer Bing & Bing would continue the transformation.  The firm frequently worked with renowned architect Emery Roth, producing numerous Manhattan apartment buildings.  In 1928, Bing & Bing hired him for what would be their most ambitious project--five apartment buildings that would be called Southgate.  One would face East 51st Street and the others, separated by a verdant garden, lined east 52nd Street.

The massive enterprise would take three years to construct.  On April 12, 1931, The New York Times noted that the completed project would have "a total of nearly 500 housekeeping apartments ranging from one to six rooms."  The article explained that all five buildings, "similar in design," would be "identified with the name Southgate."

Each of the buildings was slightly different.  400 East 52nd Street is as the far right.  image by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

No. 400 East 52nd Street opened in October 1931.  Faced in brown brick above a stone base, its entrance sat within a dramatic, three-story frame of Art Deco stylized fountains.  The relatively unadorned midsection rose to two sleek, tiled-faced balconies.  Above the 14th floor, Roth ignored the setbacks at the ends and center of the building with single-bay-wide sections that rose two more floors.  Another ocean liner-ready balcony clung to the 15th floor.  An advertisement offered, "Two to five rooms, some with river view," and boasted, "dropped living rooms, log burning fireplaces.  Dining galleries or alcoves, casement windows, tile bath with every chamber, full size kitchens."

Among the early, professional residents of 400 East 52nd Street were John Anderson, drama critic for The New York  Evening Journal and former assistant critic of the New York Evening Post; and Arthur Samuels, editor of Harper's Bazaar.  In 1932, the year he moved in, he became associate editor of Arts Weekly and an instructor of drama at New York University.

Perhaps an unexpected tenant was 26-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Bates Volck, who moved into a ninth-floor apartment on November 7, 1931.  Born in England, she was the granddaughter of Domício da Gama, the former Brazilian ambassador to the United States.  Her engagement to Prince Johannes of Liechtenstein was announced in 1926, but the marriage never came to pass.

Just before moving into 400 East 52nd Street, Elizabeth suffered another failed romance.  According to her best friend, Diana Durant, Elizabeth had been experiencing "emotional strain" since "the disruption of her love affair with Gerald D. Tiffany."  The day after moving in, Elizabeth telephoned Durant "and said she had been thinking of taking her life," according to the North Shore Daily Journal.

Several hours later, at about 15 minutes after midnight, Frank McLoughlin, who lived nearby, heard an explosion.  The New York Times reported, "Looking up, he beheld a flash of fire and smoke bursting through the shattered windows of the ninth-floor apartment."  Elizabeth's apartment had been devastated by the violent gas explosion.  The Times said it "shattered walls and furniture on three floors and aroused residents within several blocks."

Elizabeth Volck's body was found in the apartment.  She had left a note saying: "I leave all my furniture to Diana Durant to keep or sell according to what she sees fit."  She then opened the gas jets of the stove.  Presumably, she knew that the explosion set off by the pilot light would kill her in case her suicide attempt was unsuccessful.  (Diana Durant would not receive any of the apartment's furniture, all of which was wrecked by the blast.)

A similar tragedy occurred the following year.  Edward R. Seen was a successful architect.  Born in Basel, Switzerland, he had been associated with Delano & Aldrich for more than two decades.  He and his second wife were married in November 1932.

Less than a month later, on December 11, Seen left the office, saying he would have lunch at home.  He telephoned later saying he had been detained by business.  Instead, he drove to Patchogue, Long Island.  At 11:00 p.m., he registered at Roe's Hotel there.  The next morning a maid found his body "with a bullet hole in his right temple," as reported by The New York Times.

More uplifting press coverage was routinely found in the society columns.  On September 1, 1932, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. James E. Hollingsworth of 400 East Fifty-second Street left yesterday for a visit with Mrs. Herbert Hoover at the White House.  Mrs. Hollingsworth will go later to California, where she will be joined by her husband."

Other initial residents were Henry R. Duflon, John P. Hogan, and John Perry Mitchell, Jr. and his wife, the former Lucy G. Clark.  Born in 1890, Duflon was superintendent of agencies for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Illinois and Indiana.  He had an office here and in Chicago.  John P. Hogan was vice chairman of the Construction Code Authority and general chairman of the Construction League of the United States, which sponsored the codes for the construction industry.

John Perry Mitchell, Jr. was born in Sterling, Massachusetts on March 30, 1899.  He received his B.A. degree at Dartmouth and his Masters from Harvard.  He remained at Harvard as a instructor of economics until 1924.  He and Lucy Clark were married in 1930.  On July 1, 1934, Mitchell became assistant director of education at the Rockefeller Foundation.  In September 1935, he and Lucy adopted an infant boy whom they named Jonathan.  Tragically, five months later, on February 24, 1936, John Mitchell, Jr. died at Roosevelt Hospital at the age of 36.

Living here that year were singer Paul Davin and his wife, Winifred.  Davin had appeared on Broadway in Sweethearts and Knights of Song.  Winifred was described by The New York Times as "a former countess."  

On May 8, 1936, Winifred hired a maid, 22-year-old Jennie Stanley.  Ten days later, Jennie disappeared along with $685 in cash (equal to about $15,500 in 2025), jewelry and a gold cigarette case.  

The savvy Winifred "suggested to the police that the servant probably would buy expensive clothes and display them among friends in Harlem," reported The Times.  And so, Winifred and two detectives staked out Seventh Avenue and 139th Street.  Sure enough, just after midnight, Jennie Stanley passed by "stylishly gowned."  The article said, "In her apartment, the police said, they recovered all the jewelry, except a gold cigarette case, and the money."

A charming garden separates the 51st and 52nd Street buildings.

Federal employee Ed Weltman occupied a ninth-floor apartment here as early as 1939.  On the afternoon of September 21 that year, his sister and her daughters, Jessie and Alice Wells, visited him.  The sisters, described by The Billboard in 1926 as "exceptionally pretty blondes," comprised the song-and-dance team of the Wells Sisters.  Starting out as teenagers in vaudeville theaters, the duo now sang on radio and had just returned from a road tour the previous week.

Jessie Wells said she did not feel well and asked her uncle if she could go into a bedroom to rest.  Later, her mother checked on her and found her missing.  "The bathroom window was flung up," reported The New York Times.  The 25-year-old had jumped to her death.

Two fascinating residents were Sara J. Woodward and her daughter, Mary Woodward Reinhardt.  Born in 1863 in Portadown, Ireland, Sara was the eleventh of the seventeen children of Alexander Johnson.  In 1880 she arrived in Chicago at the age of 17, eventually becoming a fashion expert for the department store Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co.  According to The New York Times later, she was the first to bring Paris creations to the Middle West and "staged what was said to have been Chicago's first fashion show."

Sara married Frank E. Woodward, the president of the Bank of Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1897.  The couple had two daughters, Alice and Mary.  Sara founded the Public Library of Watertown and during World War I was chairman of the city's American Red Cross unit.  She also organized a movement to establish two parks there.

In the meantime, Mary Woodward graduated from Milwaukee Downer Seminary, attended the University of Wisconsin and received her Bachelors degree from Radcliffe College in 1923.  After doing graduate work at Oxford University in England, she married Paul Reinhardt, owner of the Reinhardt Galleries in New York City in 1924.  Mary became associated with the gallery.  

Frank Woodward died in 1933 and the following year Mary and Paul Reinhardt divorced.  Sara Woodward relocated to New York and she and Mary moved into an apartment here.  

It may have been the urban Manhattan environment that prompted Sarah to become an early activist against second-hand smoke, campaigning for the reduction or elimination of "the smoke nuisance."  Related to that cause, she joined the board of directors of the Outdoor Cleanliness Association.

Now single, Mary Woodard Reinhardt reinvented herself.  She founded the Hollywood Patterns, a subsidiary of Condé Nast.  She was, as well, secretary of the Birth Control Federation of America.

In 1939, Sara Johnson Woodward's health began to fail.  She died in her apartment at the age of 77 on January 9, 1940.  Just five months later, on June 21, Mary Woodward Reinhardt married Albert D. Lasker, former chairman of the United States Shipping Board.

John Anderson and his wife, the former Margaret Breuning  (an art critic), were still living here at the time.  Now the drama critic of the New York Journal American, he was also an author and playwright, and president of the New York Drama Critics Circle.  Among his books were the 1929 Box Office, Book of the White Mountains, released in 1930, and the 1938 The American Theatre.   His plays included The Inspector General and The Fatal Alibi.

On February 9, 1942, The New York Times reported that Efrem Zimbalist Jr. had leased an apartment here.  The son of the famous violinist and symphony conductor and the operatic star Alma Gluck, he was born on November 30, 1918.  While his parents were major figures in classical music, Zimbalist Jr. was drawn to the theater.  He took a job as a page for NBC radio in 1936 where he got small roles on air.  Zimbalist would go on to a highly successful career in television and film.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (publicity photo for the U.S. Steel Hour, 1956)

Italian-born John Perona, who owned the El Morocco nightclub, had lived here as early as 1935.  That year, the 38-year-old bachelor had a live-in servant, 20-year-old Grey Clements, a Filipino immigrant.  Clements lived with and worked for him for at least five years.  By 1946, Perona had acquired a country home at Newton, New Jersey and now had two male servants in the East 52nd Street apartment.

John Perona (original source unknown)

Perona fired both servants in the fall of 1946.  Shortly afterward, on the evening of October 9, he returned to the city from Newton to find that "seven sets of cuff links and fifteen or sixteen cigarette lighters, gifts and valued by him at $20,000 were missing from his penthouse apartment at 400 East Fifty-second Street.," as reported by The New York Times.  The figure Perona gave to the police would translate to about $321,000 today.  It is unclear if he ever recovered his items.  Perona would remain here at least through the 1950s.

Among Perona's neighbors in the building was theater producer and director Cheryl Crawford.  Born in Akron, Ohio in 1902, she studied drama at Smith College and came to New York City in 1925.  In 1931 she, Harold Clurman, and Lee Strausberg formed The Group Theatre, a 12-week-long training and rehearsal course at Brookfield Center, Connecticut.  Among the fledgling actors whose careers were highly influenced by Crawford were Bojangles Robinson, Mary Martin, Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Ethel Barrymore, Tallulah Bankhead and Paul Robeson.  

Cheryl Crawford from the Class of 1925 Smith College yearbook.

She co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947.  There major stars like Marlon Brando, James Dean, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson and a nearly endless list of others began their careers.

Attorney Ethelbert Warfield and his wife, the former Alice Blum had moved in in 1936.  Born in 1898, he graduated from the Dickinson Law School and was now a member of Satterlee, Warfield & Stephens.  He and Alice maintained a summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  In 1955, the couple had two domestic servants here, a live-in maid and a "housemaid," Sigrid Tovia, who had worked every Thursday since 1948.  (Sigrid Tovia was the Anglicized version of her birth name, Sirri Toivanen.)

Sigrid was described by her co-worker as always wearing "inexpensive, old clothes and welcomed gifts of leftover bread and meats, which she carefully put away into her paper shopping bag."  The Warfields were out of town on March 22, 1955.  That evening Sigrid left the apartment and headed home.  At 6:00, while crossing East 60th Street near Second Avenue, the 80-year-old was struck and run over by a crosstown bus.  She died under the bus.  The New York Times reported, "The police at the scene paid scant notice at first to the brown bag in the victim's hands."  In it was $21,617 in cash (more than a quarter of a million dollars today).  She had also been carrying a straw-handled purse in which were two deposit books showing $14,575 in savings.

After owning 400 East 52nd Street for half a century, on June 30, 1985, The New York Times reported that Bing & Bing had sold 29 apartment buildings, including this one.  The newspaper commented, "The Bing & Bing buildings are regarded as among the city's finest prewar properties."  Two years later, the building was converted to a cooperative.

Other than the loss of the casement windows, Emery Roth's Depression Era structure and its architectural siblings are, happily, little changed.  

many thanks to Rene Tatnall for suggesting this post and for showing me around the building.

photographs by the author

Schwartz & Gross's 1931 241 Central Park West

 

The Central Park West blockfront between 84th and 85th Street was lined with high-end Queen Anne style homes in 1930.  Designed by Edward Angell, they had been home to wealthy and influential New Yorkers since 1889.  By now, however, private residences along Central Park West were becoming increasingly rare as they were razed to make way for modern, Art Deco style apartment buildings.  That year developers Earle & Calhoun demolished all but the three northern mansions, and commissioned the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a replacement building.  

The architects would simultaneously design a similar structure at 55 Central Park West for the developers.  Both would rise 19 stories and be designed in the cutting edge Art Deco style.  The northern building took the address 241 Central Park West.  Faced in beige brick, the great mass of the structure was relatively undecorated.  The lower and upper floors made up for that with striking cast stone forms that have been variously described as cornstalks, calla lilies and tulips.

On September 5, 1931, The New York Sun reported, "the new Earle & Calhoun building at 241 Central Park West...is completely finished."  The critic wrote:

Apartments of three to six [sic] apartments are contained in the nineteen-story structure which is decidedly modern both as to exterior and interior equipment.  Platinum trimmed towers, designed apparently for the edification of the penthouse dwellers, and violet ray glass windows are just two of the innovations.

Like a set from a Fred Astaire motion picture, the sleek apartments had sunken living rooms with fireplaces.  The bathrooms were "tiled in color" and principle bedrooms had connecting dressing rooms.

The step-down into the living room can be seen at left in this photograph of the David Hey apartment, taken in 1957.  (Note that the mid-century sofa curves around the lamp table.)  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

An advertisement offered apartments from three to seven rooms, noting the views "overlooking 840 acres of park.  Dropped living rooms, bath to every chamber, room-size galleries, etc."

Among the initial residents were Salvatore Spitale, his wife, the former Ida Irene Firman, and their two children, Jane Helyn and Salvatore Charles.  Known as "Salvy," The New York Sun described Spitale as having been a "minor character in the underworld" until the famous kidnapping of the Charles Lindbergh baby in 1932.  Then he and Irving Bitz were recommended to Lindberg as "square guys" who could hunt down the kidnappers and negotiate with them.  The New York Sun said, "Their employment by Col. Lindbergh put them in the police spotlight, and they have been basking uncomfortably in it ever since."

The repeated press coverage of the gangster was starkly different from the reports of the dinner parties and debutante entertainments of other residents.  On June 23, 1932, The New York Sun reported, "The Brooklyn police who have been anxious to talk with Salvatore Spitale in connection with the murder of Vannie Higgins, beer runner and racketeer, reported today that their wish had been gratified."

Spitale explained that he had not been avoiding detectives, but that he and Bitz "felt it would be better, everything considered, to keep out of sight."  He said, "I don't know who shot Vannie.  I'd like to."  He added that he had been home every evening at 241 Central Park West if they had truly tried to find him.

Ida was curt when a reporter from The Sun telephoned the apartment about the investigation.  "I don't see why the newspapers are always trying to drag us into everything," she said.

Salvatore "Salvy" Spitale (original source unknown)

And, indeed, the police were dogging Spitale.  Early on the morning of June 3, 1932, three detectives headed by Alexander McKittrick raided a speakeasy, the Red Devil Restaurant at Broome and Mott Street.  Spitale and Bitz were arrested on weapons charges.  The New York Sun reported, "It is considered strange that McKittrick and two other detectives should walk into the Red Devil and surprise Spitale and Bitz each carrying a gun.  They were stuck up so suddenly by the sleuths that they had no chance to rid themselves of their weapons."

As it turned out, the charges against Spitale were dropped in January 1933, much to the disgruntlement of police.  The New York Sun reported that Police Commissioner Edward P. Mulrooney said "he is going to 'get to the bottom of the matter' and learn why a permit was given to a man with a criminal record."  Spitale's attorney saw the case in a different light, telling reporters that police were "on a fishing expedition and it's about time they pulled their boat in."

Receiving more positive press was Emil E. Shauer.  Born in Bohemia, he was brought to America as a child.  He originally worked as a buyer of lace curtains, but his fate changed in 1905 when he partnered with Adolph Zukor and Marcus Loew in running penny arcades.  In 1913 the Famous Players Company was founded to make silent movies.  Shauer became assistant treasurer, and when the Paramount-Famous Players Lasky Corporation was organized, he was put in charge of all its foreign business.  In 1932, Paramount International Corporation was formed and Shauer was made its vice president.  

Other early residents were Edward M. and Josephine West; and William A. Earl and his wife, the former Lucretia M. Higgins.

Edward West as born in Philadelphia and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.  After working as a sports reporter for The New York Times, he became a partner in the Leson Advertising Agency.  He later established himself as an authority of the marketing of merchandise, co-founded the Advertising Agents Association of America, and became research executive for Sears, Roebuck & Co.

William A. Earl exemplified the affluence of the residents.  An attorney and the general manager of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., his passion was sailing.  His yacht was the Sea Gull III and The New York Times noted that he had been "navigator on other yachts in the Block Island races, and wrote and lectured on the subject of yachting."  He was vice-president of the New York Athletic Club and commodore of its yachting department.

Willard Huntington Wright and his wife Eleanor Rulapaugh were initial residents of 241 Central Park West--but the public knew them by other names, S. S. Van Dine and Claire De Lisle.

Claire was a portrait painter and S. S. Van Dine was an art critic and prolific novelist.  His non-fiction writings and critiques took backstage to his detective novels when he published his 1926 The Benson Murder Case that introduced the public to fictional detective Philo Vance.  By 1928 he had published two more, The Canary Murder Case and The Greene Murder Case and had become one of the best-selling authors in America.

Willard Huntington Wright, aka S. S. Van Dine from the collection of the Library of Congress

While living at 241 Central Park West, Wright's plots were first transformed to screenplays.  Of his 13 novels, 11 were made into feature films starring actors like William Powell, Basil Rathbone, Rosaline Russell and Jean Arthur.

On April 13, 1939 the Greenfield Recorder-Gazette reported, "S. S. Van  Dine, the man who set the eminently clever Philo Vance sleuthing through the pages of 11 first-rate murder mysteries, is dead."  The article explained, "Apparently in good health, Wright collapsed Tuesday night in his home, 241 Central Park West, and died of heart disease."  He was 51 years old.

William and Ida Bloom lived here by the 1940s.  Bloom operated an apparel manufacturing firm, but distinguished himself from most other garment makers by personally designing the styles.  He had broken ground when he became one of the first to design women's sports clothes.  So integral was he in the functioning of his firm that he had his hands, fingers and eyes insured for $500,000."  The New York Sun commented that the policy "was said at the time to have been one of the largest of its type ever written."

Salvatore Spitale was not the only gangland figure to live at 241 Central Park West.  While William Bloom was making women's sportswear, Robert B. Greene and his cronies operated an illegal betting operation.  The New York Sun described him as a "notorious gambler."

During the 1940 election campaign, he and Max Fox placed a $300,000 bet (around $5.8 million in 2023) on Wendell L. Willkie.  Unknown to Fox, just before election day Greene "hedged" on the bet, thereby saving the funds, but not telling Fox.  Afterward, he hired Morris Wolen, alias Wolensky, a known gunman, as his bodyguard.  His precautions did not work.  Robert B. Greene and Wolen were in the White House Bridge Club on August 3, 1942 when Max Fox walked in and fatally shot them both.  

The dining room of the David Hey family in 1957.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Irving Mendelson had attended the University of Pennsylvania where he had "attracted wide attention in the East as a fast and comparatively small left guard" for the football team, according to The New York Sun.  Upon his graduation in 1940, he moved into 241 Central Park West with his sister and her husband.  When the United States entered World War II, he joined the army.  On December 20, 1944 the family received word that he was missing in action.

Then, in February 1945, they received a letter.  The New York Sun said, "The letter from Sergt. Mendelson came from Stalag IVB, which is believed to be near Dresden."  He said that his capture by the Germans had "been an ordeal."  The newspaper reported, however, that he described "life in the prison camp [as] tolerable, with some books, lectures and entertainment provided."  Happily, he survived the war and lived to be 74 years old.

A colorful resident of 241 Central Park West was Arthur Kober.  Born in what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was brought to America at the age of 4, his family finally settling in the Bronx.  He dropped out of high school during his freshman year, found a job as a stock clerk at Gimbels department store, and studied stenography.

Against all odds, he became an author and playwright, and like S. S. Van Dine, was best known for one character, Bella Gross.  A young woman whose goal in life was to find a man, she and her family spoke in a rich Bronx dialect.   In one instance her mother laments, "Such a nice girl can't catch a fine, steady boy who knows how to put by a dolleh?  She got a good head on her...She's 10 times smott like Kitty Shapiro, and still in all Kitty, she can catch a nice boy, a docteh."

Arthur Kober (original source unknown)

On New Year's Eve 1925, Kober married author Lillian Hellman.  She later told The New York Times, "We had this crazy idea that if we'd marry on New Year's Eve, we'd remember it."   The couple divorced in 1932, however they remained friends and Kober wrote the screenplay for Hellman's 1939 play The Little Foxes.

Kober developed cancer in the early 1970's.  He was still living here in 1975 when he died at Lenox Hill Hospital at the age of 74.

Schwartz & Gross's looming structure is a noteworthy component of Central Park West's row of Art Deco apartment buildings.  And its cast stone ornamentation continues to capture the imaginations of passersby.

photographs by the author

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

Blum & Blum's 1925 791 Park Avenue

 

Brothers George and Edward Blum were 9 and 12 years old, respectively, when they arrived in New York from France in 1888.  They would both return to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before opening the New York architectural firm, Blum & Blum in 1909.  It was a partnership that would change the face of apartment buildings in New York City.

Within the next two decades the Blum brothers would be responsible for at least 120 apartment houses.  Their grasp of French architectural trends that transcended their Beaux-Arts training—like Art Nouveau and Art Deco—would impact their designs in New York.  

By the end of World War I, upscale apartments were rising along upper Park Avenue.  In 1924 the newly formed syndicate 791 Park Avenue demolished six vintage rowhouses at the corner southwest corner of Park Avenue and 74th Street, and a tenement building on the avenue, to make way for one more.  The group hired Blum & Blum to design the project.

Completed in 1925, 791 Park Avenue rose 14 stories.  Its Art Deco design sat upon a two-story rusticated limestone base.  While the building had none of the colorful, jazzy terra cotta ornamentation seen in some of Blum & Blum's 1920's designs, the architects distinguished the upper floors with serrated balconies below two-story arches and a decorative parapet along the roof.

photo by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Designed to attract wealthy tenants, 791 Park Avenue offered sprawling apartments with the amenities of a private home.  An advertisement in The Spur in 1925 offered suites of 12 rooms and 4 baths ranging from $9,000 to $14,000--the more expensive of which would equal $17,250 per month today.  Decades later, on April 29, 1979, Susan Bendheim, writing in The New York Times, would comment, "At 791 Park Avenue, with 28 apartments, there are over 90 maids' rooms.  These apartments represent the normal design features of the 1920's."

Press coverage of the residents centered around social events, like the lengthy coverage of Muriel Bache Richards's coming out on September 16, 1932.  Muriel was one of three daughters of broker Frederick Lloyd Richards and Hazel Joy Bache.  The family's summer home, Hazelmere, was at King's Point, Long Island.

The Richards estate, Hazelmere.  Architectural Record, 1918 (copyright expired)

Muriel's debut started with a dinner party at Hazelmere, followed by a "supper dance" at the Turf and Field Club at Belmont Park.  The New York Times wrote, "Supper was served continuously at tables on the lawn."  The article required several paragraphs to name the scores of guests.

It would not be long before cloud formed over the Richards apartment.  Hazel sued for divorce in 1936, accusing  Frederick of cruelty.  On the very day it was granted, she married Frederic Beckman, an investment broker reportedly half her age.  Hazel retained the Park Avenue apartment and her daughters.

Two years later, on March 24, 1938, The New York Times reported that Muriel was engaged to Francis Warren Pershing, the only son of famed General John J. Pershing.  The ceremony took place in St. Thomas's Church on Fifth Avenue on April 22.

Another engagement announced that year was that of Eleanor Jane Lindsay to Cooper Schieffelin.  She was the daughter of George Nelson Lindsay and Florence Eleanor Vliet.  The prospective groom came from an early New York family and in reporting on the engagement The New York Sun commented, "Many of the important Colonial New York families are found in the Schieffelin family."

Eleanor was one of five children.  The family's summer home was in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  Nicholas Pileggi, writing in New York Magazine on January 4, 1971, said, "the Lindsay children were treated to the educations and amenities of families who have lived on Park Avenue all their lives.  John, for instance, went through an impeccable succession of schools--Buckley, St. Paul's and Yale."  John Lindsay would go on to become a U.S. Representative and, notably, the mayor of New York City.

From 1934 through 1938 novelist, playwright and short story writer Edna Ferber lived in a penthouse apartment.  Born in Michigan in 1885, the award winning writer would never marry.   According to Julie Goldsmith Gilbert in her 1978 Ferber: Edna Ferber and Her Circle, a Biography, Ferber took full opportunity of the terrace for gardening.  She writes that the garden was "so lush that it caused even the inveterate gardener Alfred Lunt to exclaim, 'Peach trees in a New York apartment!  I Never!'"  Gilbert notes:

She hoed and spaded and watered and transplanted; she had awnings put up and new flagstones put down.  She carried on as though that little garden were the Tuileries.

Edna Ferber, Theatre Magazine, July 1928

Other socially-visible families here at the time were the David Tod Bulkleys and the Francis R. Stoddards.  Their entertainments were mostly the expected dinner parties, receptions and teas.  But, at least once a year, Edith Plaut gave a much different sort of affair.

On May 5, 1938, The New York Sun reported on her annual cocktail party "for the circus folk."  If the reporter had expected to see colorful costumes and headdresses, he was disappointed.  "The rooms were swarming with performers, but it was hard to distinguish them from Mrs. Plaut's less spectacular friends."  Among the guests were the Flying Wallendas, "the family that stalks above the audience on the high wire," slack wire walker Nio Naitto, and married aerial acrobats Antoinette and Arthur Concello.

At mid-century, 791 Park Avenue was converted to a co-op.  When attorney Sidney Weisner and his wife were rejected by the board in 1958, Weisner sued.  The case resulted in a landmark ruling that, so long as there were no civil rights violations, the co-op board of directors can reject whomever it pleases, without explanation.  The court wrote, "There is no reason why the owners of the co-operation apartment house could not decide for themselves with whom they wish to share their elevators, their common halls and facilities, their stockholders' meetings, their management problems and responsibilities and their homes."

Among the owners who were accepted were the family of  publisher Charles Scribner, who would remain for decades, and Louis J. Brecker and his wife Dorothy.

In 1916, while still a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Brecker "concluded that Philadelphia would not be so dull if it had a ballroom," according to Richard Severo of The New York Times in 1977.  And so he opened one, calling it Roseland.  In 1919 he moved his Roseland Ballroom to New York City, laying the foundation of a decades-long dancing tradition.  Dorothy Brecker died in December 1976, and Louis died on July 8 the following year.

Actress and singer Polly Bergen occupied apartment 11-A at the time.  She was a vice-president of the board of trustees of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc., in 1980.  Interestingly enough, on the corporation's list of executives her occupation was listed as "businesswoman." 

As was the case in 1925, there are 28 apartments within the building, two per floor.

photographs by the author

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

The German Masonic Temple (Friends Seminary) - 220 East 15th Street

 

Political and social unrest in the German states prompted thousands of immigrants to settle in New York City beginning in the late 1840's.  By 1855, only Berlin and Vienna had larger German-speaking populations.  The new citizens clustered on the Lower East Side and East Village, creating what would become known as Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany.

On July 3, 1879, The New York Times reported, "The corner-stone of a German Masonic Temple, in Fifteenth-street, near Third-avenue, was laid yesterday afternoon in the presence of a very large number of Masons and spectators."  The article noted that the decision to build a temple had been made four years earlier, "and an association of German lodges was organized for that purpose."

The article said, "the building, when completed, will be five stories high, and be made of Baltimore brick, with Nova Scotia stone trimmings.  The cellar and basement will be devoted to business uses, and on each of the three of the floors will be a lodge-room, with the necessary ante-rooms."  The 1894 History of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of New York would call the building a "noble structure, the birth of German thought, and innate feeling for home and fatherland." 

Designed by Arthur M. Thom, a member of the firm Thom & Wilson, the structure cost $60,000 (about $1.6 million today).   Thom's Queen Anne design featured stone bandcourses that delineated each story, brick piers that provided dimension and a handsome pressed metal cornice.  On November 9, the New York Dispatch commented, "Though not large enough to be imposing, the building presents a very neat appearance," noting "the heavy stone stoop gives the appearance of solidity to the whole."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In the basement were a restaurant and dining hall.  The first floor held a lecture room, 28 by 62 feet, and the second and third floors contained lodge rooms (the Corinthian and the Ionic, respectively), which were the same dimensions as the lecture room.  The fourth floor held a smaller lodge room, the Doric, and the janitor's apartment.  The New York Dispatch said, "Every lodge room has suitable preparation and examination rooms attached."   They would be used by 12 German lodges.

To help pay for the building, a series of benefit events was held throughout the construction period.  On November 2, 1879, for instance, the New York Dispatch reported, "A Fair, in aid of the German Masonic Temple Fund in this city, will be opened in the building itself, No. 220 East Fifteenth street, November 10th, 1879."

The building was formally opened on March 4, 1880.  While the residents of Little Germany were almost all first generation immigrants, the assassination of President James A. Garfield a year later, reflected how whole-heartedly they had embraced their new home.  On the night of September 16, 1881, the German-American Independent Citizens' Committee met in the German Masonic Temple.  Among the resolutions adopted that night was:

Whereas, The murderous assault upon the President of the United States not only endangered the life of the chief executive officer of our Republic, but also menaces our national organization and the security of truly republican institutions base on the sovereign will of the nation.

For decades to come, the various lodge rooms would be the scene of funerals.  Among the earliest was that of Franz Ruppert who died on September 30, 1883.  The New York Times reported, "He was one of the oldest German citizens of New-York, the first German malt-dealer in the City, and the father of Jacob Ruppert, the brewer...Mr. Ruppert was the oldest member of Trinity Lodge, F. and A. M., a member of Herrman Lodge of Odd-fellows, and of the Brewers' Association, and for many years of the German Aid Society."

One of the lodges, the Ironsides Council, No. 608, American Legion of Honor, passed a surprising and progressive resolution in the winter of 1884.  The New York Times reported that "after a spirited discussion," the members had voted to allow women to join the lodge.  The decision, no doubt, raised eyebrows within the various fraternal organizations throughout the city.

Among the groups that met here as early as 1884 was the Manhattan Liberal Club.  On December 26, 1885, The New York Times reported on its Christmas celebration.  "A Christmas tree, decorated with tinsel stars, one or two figures, strings of pop corn, and various ornaments, stood at the platform."  The club's president, T. B. Wakeman, gave a dissertation on "Yuletide Festivals."  Afterward, "candied fruits were distributed from the tree among the audience, which one lady in passing a dish said was their 'communion service.'"

The Manhattan Liberal Club would use space in the building for decades, hosting lectures like T. Thomas Fortune's speech on "The Afro-America's Future" on February 4, 1901; or Grace Isabel Coldron's talk on "Women and War" on March 10, 1905.  But things did not always go smoothly for the group.

On December 26, 1906, member Theodore Schroeder wrote a heated letter to Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham.  In it he insisted, "The club as such has nothing to do with anarchism.  It conducts a lecture platform with opportunity for free discussion of the lecture topics.  Owing to this chance for propaganda, anarchists often attend to avail themselves of the privilege to discuss their petty hobby."

The magazine Mother Earth, published by Emma Goldman, was sometimes sold at the door on lecture nights.  Schroeder complained, "I am informed that your policemen have threatened the managers of the club, who are not anarchists, with arrest and a dispersal of their meeting if they allowed Mother Earth to be kept on sale there...It is precisely such police lawlessness as this which breeds anarchists of the violent type."

In the spring of 1905, architect Otto L. Spannbake was hired to make interior renovations, notably the installation of modern toilets and new walls.  They would pale to the massive remodeling project designed by architects Louis Almendinger and M. Allen Schlendorf in 1936.  The entrance was lowered to street level and a two-part facade was applied over the original.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The result was an architectural split personality.  The lower two floors were given a classical Greek temple front.  Double height Doric columns upheld a substantial entablature.   The disparate upper floors were faced in gray cast stone, their sleek Art Deco design looking more like a bank building than a lodge.

The Art Deco upper section stands in stark contrast to the neo-Greek lower floors.

On November 15, 1939 the name of the German Masonic Temple Association was changed to the German Masonic Home Corporation.  For decades the Association had operated the German Masonic Home at Tappen, New York "for aged, indigent Masons, their wives or widows, from the income of the German Masonic Temple at 220 East 15th Street, from voluntary contributions and donations, from legacies, etc.," according to the 1905 New York Charities Directory.  The name change hinted at the ebbing lodge activity within the building.

photo by Beyond My Ken

On March 16, 1997, The New York Times reported, "Friends Seminary, on Rutherford Place near Stuyvesant Square, plans to buy the German Masonic Temple across the street, and to relocate some of its upper-school classes there."   The article explained that following renovations by Anderson Architects the school would have an additional 15,000 square feet.  Completed in 1998, the renovations resulted in two classrooms for math and science per floor for students in grades 9 through 12.

photographs by the author

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Ralph Walker's 1927 New York Telephone Building - 140 West Street

from the collection of the Library of Congress

On June 7, 1926 The Lima New York Recorder reported "Today a huge buff and gray mass adds another prominent feature to the famous profile of lower Manhattan; it is the building of the New York Telephone Company recently complete at 140 West Street."  Touting it as the "World's Largest Telephone Building," the article noted that it accommodated "an army of 6,000 telephone workers"--essentially the population of a small town.

The massive building project had started three years earlier, in 1923.  The newspaper explained that following World War I "the clamor for telephone service swelled until it bid fair to overwhelm a company whose reserve resources had been drained."  The New York Telephone Company's greatly enlarged staff and equipment were scattered throughout the city, often in leased space.

The newspaper noted that "To the architects, McKenzie, Voorhees and Gmelin was presented an exacting task.  Their plans had to provide a structure of a kind peculiar to the requirements of a telephone company and of a design which would not be unsightly and therefore objectionable to the citizens of New York."  The article failed to give credit to the specific architect responsible, however, and that was Ralph Walker.

Walker had not only produced a monumental structure, he set a new course for architects nationwide.  According to Margaret M. M. Pickart writing in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's designation report in 1991, "A pivotal structure in the history of skyscraper architecture, it is a prototypical example of what came to be regarded as the American Art Deco style."  As the building neared completion, celebrated artist Joseph Pennell deemed it "the most impressive modern building in the world."

Walker carried his Art Deco motif inside, most noticeably at the lobby level.  Painted ceiling panels done by muralist Hugo R. B. Newman and bronze plaques embedded in the flooring depicted events and developments in the history of communication.  Even the Art Deco chandeliers mimicked the setback configuration of modern skyscrapers.

photo via WFC Architects

Managing the transfer of the equipment and employees was a herculean task.  The Daily Star, a Queens newspaper noted on June 7, "The migration has been under way since last February."  The transfer required 1,650 moving vans.

photo via WFC Architects

Included in the building was the New York Telephone Company's Training School, where switchboard operators went through a four-week training period.  The company was precise in the type of women it needed (there were no male operators).  The Lima New York Recorder, in 1927, wrote "The successful applicant for telephone operating possesses quick mentality, a pleasant disposition and physical and mental alertness."

There was an on-site General Employment Bureau on the ground floor to handle filling the hundreds of positions.  "At this bureau, applications from young women are accepted for telephone operating positions and for the various kinds of clerical employment," explained the Millbrook Mirror and Round Table.  The applicants waited in a lounge furnished in a home-like atmosphere with tables and fringe-shaded lamps before being escorted to one of ten interview rooms.

Another necessity in such a mammoth building with hundreds of daily visitors was a lost-and-found room.  The Telephone Review reported in 1929 "During the past two months the lost articles returned to owners included: Gloves, rings, silk hose, handbags, money, wrist watches, pocket books, cameo, hand bag, keys, fraternity pin, scarf, umbrellas, x-ray picture, pay envelopes, cosmetic sets, ear rings, and one bag containing apples and potatoes."

Although actual fighting during World War II was taking place in Europe, New York was well aware that it was a potential target for enemy planes.  Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor drew the country into the conflict, the city was on alert.  On January 10, 1941 The New York Sun reported that several hundred "observers" had been placed at observation posts throughout the city.  Not surprisingly, one of them was the New York Telephone Building.  

In 1928 the New York Telephone Building loomed above all downtown buildings.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

By now the legions of New York Telephone workers had been creating Christmas cheer for years.  The Great Depression left many families without money to pay for gifts.  With their own jobs secure, the telephone workers shared their good fortune.  On December 8, 1938 The New York Sun reported "More than 2,000 members of the staff of the New York Telephone Company, 140 West street, are playing Santa Claus this year, and on Saturday will begin the initial distribution in hospitals, institutions and poor homes toys and playthings for approximately 3,000 children, who otherwise might have no Christmas."  

As in years past, the female employees provided dolls.  "These, in most cases, have been elaborately dressed by women employees of the Manhattan offices of the company, their hand-made costumes portraying every nationality and color and a wide variety of fashions."  The men contributed things like books, scrapbooks, "stream-lined trains, automobiles, airplanes and other mechanical novelties."  The annual Christmas toy distribution continued at least through 1946.

The New York Telephone Company embarked on another program in 1971 which was only marginally related to the telephone; but continued the firm's concern over families and children.  That year it began distributing free Child Return Kits.  It was a simple pocket-sized folder with space for the child's information on one side, and a slot for a dime on the other.  With the folder in his pocket, a lost child was identifiable; and if he were old enough to use a pay phone, he had the coin.  The company's announcement cautioned parents, "But don't forget to remind your child not to spend his emergency dime on an emergency like soda."

A large fire broke out in the building in 1975.  According to Steven Scher in his New York City Firefighting: 1901-2001, "hundreds of firefighters were injured and sick for months afterward from the burning wire insulation.  The fire knocked out wide areas of phone service as well."

New York Telephone Company ceased to exist when NYNEX was formed; the building became headquarters of Bell Atlantic after that firm merged with NYNEX; and eventually it was home to Verizon.  It all resulted in a change in the building's name as well.  The New York Telephone Company tag was dropped and 140 West Street became officially known as the Barclay-Vesey Building.

The damage of the 1975 fire was nothing compared to the carnage caused by the collapse of the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001.  The government's May 2005 Environmental Impact Statement explained "When 7 WTC collapsed directly onto 140 West Street, Verizon's building was severely damaged and telephone and other communication services were cut off to large parts of Lower Manhattan."

Thousands of Verizon employees had to be temporarily relocated while repairs were made.  Glenn Collins, writing in The New York Times on January 6, 2003 said "The gaping holes in the tan-brick facade of the Verizon Building are still open to the ground zero void.  The blasted steelwork is jacked up like a Rube Goldberg contraption.  Only four tortured pieces of the 72-foot ornamental entranceway bronze work now exist.  Such are the wounds inflicted by the crushing debris from not one, but three, neighboring buildings: the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, and 7 World Trade Center, which pancaked next door."

photo by the Federal Emergency Management Agency

Verizon's New York manager for design and construction, Dominic P. Veltri, said of the massive project "What we're doing here is engineering on the fly.  We're changing a flat tire on a bus going down the highway at 60 miles an hour."  At the time $70 million had been spent to stabilize the building and, according to Collins, "the restoration is expected to cost at least $140 million more."

Each of the 1,800 windows were replaced, 520,000 facade bricks were recreated in Stone Creek, Ohio, and 22,500 cinder blocks and 93 tons of structural steel were required.  Inside the 15 ceiling murals had been damaged by burst water mains and firefighting efforts.  Four of them required extensive conservation and all needed to be cleaned.   The bronze entrance on Washington Street and the decorations above the ground floor windows were mutilated.  They were recast at the Excalibur Bronze Foundry under direction of William F. Collins, AIA Architects, LLP. 

photo via WFC Architects

Verizon brought its employees back in December 2005.   But yet another devastating event would take place seven years later.  On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit New York City.  Lower Manhattan was swamped by an immense storm surge; the flooding reaching four feet high in the lobby.  Once again the 1,700 employees were relocated.

On April 11, 2013 The Times's architectural columnist David W. Dunlap, who called the lobby "a masterpiece of Jazz Age decorative art," wrote "As the company began recovering from the worst of the destruction, it became clear that the flooding had even affected 12 monumental ceiling frescoes...Paint was peeling, flaking and blistering."

The paintings were in danger of being lost.  The EverGreene Architectural Arts studio was hired to repair and stabilize the panels.  The meticulous, labor intensive project cost Verizon $160,000.

A conservator of William F. Collins Architects brings a ceiling panel back to life.  photo via WFC Architects

Only a month after The Times article Verizon announced it would move 1,100 employees from No. 140 West Street "and offer half of the 31-story tower for sale or lease."  Before the year's end developer Ben Shaoul purchased 22 floors for conversion to residential condominiums, known as One Hundred Barclay.

photo by Beyond My Ken

And Verizon had learned a valuable lesson in the meantime.  In October that year it began construction of a nine-foot high wall to protect the building against flooding.