The 1905 Hudson Stables - 248 West 108th Street

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Born in 1839, Herman Masemann immigrated from Germany in 1856.  By the turn of the century, he had garnered a significant fortune in the butcher business.  In 1905, he acquired the 25-foot-wide lot at 248 West 108th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue and gave the architectural firm of Holt & Weidinger a formidable (some might have said impossible) task: squeezing a livery stable onto the plot no wider than an upscale residence.  The five-story brick-and-stone stable cost Masemann $18,000 to construct, or about $650,000 in 2026 terms.

Holt & Wiedinger's design was a blend of Arts & Crafts and neo-Georgian styles.  Two large arches with limestone lintels filled the ground floor.  One contained the double-doored carriage bay and the other the pedestrian entrance and a window.  Grouped windows at the second through fourth floors sat within a vast arch topped with a brick eyebrow and stone keystone.  They flooded those floors with natural light.  The five openings of the fifth floor, which sat upon a single limestone sill, were protected by a projecting cornice on floor-height cast iron brackets.  A simple brick parapet completed the design.

Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, March 10, 1906 (copyright expired)

The critic of the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide was highly impressed, calling the Hudson Stable, "what is undoubtedly the finest 25-ft. boarding stable in the city," and saying that Holt & Weidinger had shown "that it is perfectly possible to build a satisfactory stable on a 25-ft. lot."

The ground and second floors contained 60 horse stalls.  Vehicles were stored on the upper floors.  The architects placed the large electric elevator in the middle of the building rather than the rear, as was customary.  It had doors on the front and the back, "and thus permits the easy handling and storing of wagons without requiring large gangways," explained the Record & Guide.

On the first, third and fourth floors were "ample carriage-washes," while "horse-washes" were on the first and second.  The washing stations were supplied with hot and cold water.

At the front portion of the third floor was the harness room, "connected by a harness lift with the stall floors and office below," said the article.  "This room also contains lockers for private coachmen."  The architects' ingenious solutions included the feeding of the horses.  The feed room was at the rear of the top floor and "feed chutes" delivered the fodder to the individual stalls below.  The Record & Guide noted, "The problem of the storage and disposal of manure has been effectively solved, and a brick vent flue removes all odors."

After operating the Hudson Stables for four years, on June 6, 1910 Herman Masemann sold the property to George C. Masemann for $1.  As his father had done, George assisted his customers in selling their horses and vehicles.  On May 28, 1912, for instance, an advertisement in the New York Herald read, "For Sale--Pony, Shetland; safe, gentle; with governess cart, harness and saddle.  Hudson Stables, 248 West 108th st."  (A governess cart was a popular two-wheeled vehicle.)

Importantly, the overwhelming majority of the advertisements on that page were marketing automobiles, not carriages or horses.  They indicated the major shift that was transforming transportation.

On April 2, 1917, architect George Raymond Euell filed a request with the Board of Appeals to convert 248 West 108th Street from "a stable into a garage in a residence district."  It appears that the request was denied, because Euell instead converted the Hudson Stable to a storage warehouse.  In doing so, he added a fifth floor in the form of a mansard.  Its single dormer sat below a deeply-overhanging roof, reminiscent of the one he removed from the fifth floor.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

George C. Masemann and his wife, Phoebe, leased the remodeled building to the Haage Storage company.  It was occasionally the scene of auctions of unclaimed property.  On February 16, 1921, for instance, auctioneer Henry Brady advertised the Sheriff's Auction at the Haage Storage Warehouse.  It included, "one George Steck baby grand piano."

Columbia Alumni News, July 1919 (copyright expired)

On July 1, 1928, The New York Times reported that the Masemanns had sold "the six-story warehouse building" to Vera Beermann.  Vera was the wife of Edward Beermann Jr. and the couple operated the Harlem Despatch Express Co.

Like the Haage Storage Warehouse, the Beermann's operation was a moving and storage business and it would remain in the building for decades.  By the time America entered World War II, the firm's name had been slightly changed to the Despatch Moving & Storage Company.  An advertisement in 1944 touted, "Our First Love is Commercial Hauling and Storage" and that it was "Now Our Defense Contribution."  (Exactly how the firm's hauling or storage of freight contributed to the war effort was left unclear.)  It added, "Tell us your hauling or storage problems.  Then you will not have one."

The Despatch Moving & Storage Co. was still in the building in the third quarter of the century.  Then, in 1989 248 West 108th Street was converted by The Bridge, Inc. for its headquarters and facilities.  The organization was founded in 1954 "to change lives by providing help, hope and opportunity to the most vulnerable New Yorkers," according to its website.  It adds that The Bridge offers "a range of behavioral health services, supportive housing, and community services to adults in New York City who are experiencing serious mental illness."

photograph by Anthony Bellov

The Bridge, Inc. continues to occupy the building that once housed horses and carriages.  Its sympathetic renovation to the building greatly preserves the historic 1905 and 1917 designs.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

Emery Roth's 1909 The Whitestone - 45 Tiemann Place

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Following the death of former Mayor Daniel F. Tiemann in 1899, his widow, the former Martha Clowes, continued to live in their free-standing home at 607 West 127th Street.  Martha was born in 1807 and The New York Times said that she "retained her faculties in spite of her age."  She died in the house at the age of 97 on October 2, 1904.

Five years later, the newly organized Charter Construction Co. purchased the Tiemann property and hired Emery Roth to design an apartment building on the site.  The 34-year-old, Hungarian-born architect produced a show-stopper.  Completed at a cost of $185,000 (just over $6.5 million in 2026), its style has been called "Classical Revival."  In fact, Roth started with a blank Renaissance Revival canvas and adorned it with liberal splashes of Arts & Crafts and Vienna Secession.  

Roth anchored his tripartite design by cladding the one-story base in beige brick and the upper sections in brownish red brick.  A stylized Greek key band of terra cotta framed the entrance and ran below the second floor.  Green tiles of magnolia leaves--their branches alternating left and right--filled the spaces.  A Vienna Secession panel above the doorway announced the address.  

photograph by Anthony Bellov

The windows of the second floor were connected by a colorful terra cotta belt course with diamond panels, and they wore striking terra cotta lintels and cornices.  The diamond motif was repeated under the intermediate cornice above the fifth floor and again above the sixth-floor windows.  A deeply overhanging copper cornice with Vienna Secession arches and rondels completed the design.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Offering apartments of two or three rooms, the Whitestone filled with professional and erudite tenants.  Among the earliest were Betty McDonald Bigelow, a 1909 graduate of Vassar, and Claude Stuart Hammond, a part owner of Teachers Magazine.

In 1920, the two-block long West 127th Street was renamed Tiemann Place, in honor of its esteemed former resident.  The Whitestone received the new address of 45 Tiemann Place.

Living here at the time was the enterprising W. H. Katz.  On July 25, 1921, he incorporated the Sound Tire Service, Inc. 

As early as 1924, attorney Nelson Jarvis Waterbury Jr. and his widowed sister, Elizabeth Jarvis Waterbury Streeter, occupied an apartment.  The siblings were the only occupants that year to appear in the Social Register of New York.  

Nelson and Elizabeth had grown up in a mansion at 13 West 56th Street in what was known as Millionaires' Row.  Their father, Nelson Jarvis Waterbury Sr., was County District Attorney from 1859 to 1861 and was Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall and Judge Advocate General of the State Militia.

Nelson Waterbury Jr. received his law degree from Columbia College in 1882.  Born in 1848, Elizabeth was the widow of William Henry Streeter, who died in 1902.  She died on January 28, 1925, her obituary noting, "Funeral private from her late residence, 'The Whitestone,' 45 Tiemann Place."

The building had attracted artistic figures by then.  Among the residents was composer and arranger Julius E. Andino.  Born in Puerto Rico, he came to the United States in 1894.  First working as a piano accompanist at the Grand Italian Conservatory of Music in Brooklyn, he eventually found his way to Tin Pan Alley, working anonymously for several leading songwriters.  In 1912 he founded the Musician's Music Publishing Co. and shortly afterward began writing scores for silent pictures.  His Schirmer's Photo-play Series was published in 1915.  While living here, he advertised his services under the nickname "Andy."

The Billboard, September 17, 1927 (copyright expired)

Andino was assuredly well-acquainted with a neighbor in the building, Laura Sedgwick Collins.  A musician, composer and actress, she was born in Poughkeepsie in 1859.  Among her compositions was a march, "The Two Republics," which was performed at the unveiling of The Statue of Liberty.

Laura Sedgwick Collins, A Woman of the Century, 1893 (copyright expired)

Also living here at the time were author and painter Harold Speakman and his wife, the former Russell Lindsay.  Born in Greenville, New Jersey on November 30, 1888, Speakman studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and in Paris and Munich.  

His far-flung resume was staggering.  He served on the front in Italy in World War I, and made a "thousand-mile journey on foot around Ireland" in 1924, according to Who's Who in America, which added that he "descended the Mississippi River from headwaters to Gulf by canoe and houseboat" in 1926-1927.  Among his books were Songs of Home and The Youngest Shepherd, both published in 1917; the 1919 From a Soldier's Heart; Beyond Shanghai, published in 1922; and Hilltops in Galilee, This Above All, and Here's Ireland, published in 1922, 1923, and 1925 respectively.

Russell Speakman was an artist as well.  She often collaborated with her husband in illustrating his articles and accompanied him on his adventures.  In 1928, for instance, they journeyed to India.

Upon their return, in August 1928, Harold Speakman was "operated on in Milwaukee for an internal trouble," according to The New York Times.  Six weeks later, at around 5:30 on the afternoon on September 24, he entered a cab and told the driver to take him to Bellevue Hospital.  Frank McGlynn would later recall that Speakman told him he was going to meet "a man riding a white horse."

At the hospital, Speakman paid McGlynn his 70 cent fare, walked a few paces toward the entrance, "drew a pistol and fired once."  The 39-year-old had shot himself in the temple.  The New York Times reported, "He died without regaining consciousness."  In his coat pocket was a grim note addressed "To Whom It May Concern."  

Get the police, ambulance and take me to where bodies belong.  You will receive further instructions later as to what to do with me.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Dr. Walter Charles and Ruth Crucet Strodt were occupants of The Whitestone at the time of the tragedy.  The couple were members of the American Mathematical Society, and Dr. Strodt was an instructor of math at Columbia University.  He would write technical books like Principal Solutions of Ordinary Differential Equations in the Complex Domain.  

Born in Norfolk, Virginia on March 2, 1917, Ruth was a 1937 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Barnard College and had been an assistant professor of mathematics at St. Lawrence University. 

Among their neighbors in the building was Helena M. Dickinson, who also had a mathematical bent.  She was a member of the American Statistical Association as early as 1928.

Other residents in the late 1920s and early 1930s were Dr. Edward Oliver Salant and Priscilla M. Rhodehamel.  Dr. Salant earned his Ph.D. in London and was a National Research fellow in physics at New York University.  Rhodehamel graduated from the Syracuse School of Library Science in 1931.  She started work in the Administration Office of the New York Public Library in 1936.

With war ranging in Europe, Roswell D. McClelland and his wife, the former Marjorie Miles, left the comforts of The Whitestone.  The couple were married in 1938.  McClelland (known to his friends as Ross) had degrees from Duke and Columbia Universities; and Marjorie graduated from Stanford and did graduate work in child psychology at the University of Cincinnati and Yale.  

On August 1, 1940, The New York Times reported that they had boarded the Pan American Airways Yankee Clipper from "the marine base at La Guardia Field" the previous day.  The article said the couple "will take charge of the Rome office of the American Friends Service Committee."  It added, "The McClellands said they hoped to study conditions in refugee camps in Spain and Southern France."  

This photo of the McClellands was taken in 1940, the year they left The Whitestone.  from the collection of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The McClellands would not return to The Whitestone.  The American Friends Service Committee ceased operation in 1941 when the United States closed its borders to refugees.  The couple was disconsolate.  They wrote home in July that year:

We comfort ourselves by thinking of the 108 people that we have helped to emigrate since we set up shop in October, but we wish that the number could have been larger.

Rather than return home, the McClellands relocated to Marseilles where Ross worked to rescue prisoners in internment camps and Marjorie helped to get children from the camps and from Jewish  homes for a 1942 rescue transport to the United States.

They then moved to Geneva, and when President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board in 1944, he placed Ross as his Presidential Representative.  Marjorie ran the AFSC office there.  After the war (during which the McClellands' two sons were born), Ross was made a U.S. Foreign Service officer and later the United States ambassador to Niger.

Living in a fifth-floor apartment at 45 Tiemann Place in 1983 were 20-year-old Robert McKnight, who was unemployed, and his mother.  In November that year, Robert was arrested in the subway "on charges of possessing cocaine and brass knuckles," according to the Staten Island Advance.

Two months later, at around 7:30 on the night of January 27, 1984, Robert McKnight climbed to the roof of 45 Tiemann Place and waited in ambush.  When 34-year-old police officer Dennis Brennan came down the street in a three-wheeled scooter, McKnight fired.  The Staten Island Advance reported that the bullet, "crashed through the windshield and into his chest."  Brennan, amazingly, survived after an eight-hour long operation at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. 

McKnight was taken from 45 Tiemann Place in handcuffs.  Associated Press Laserphoto, Staten Island Advance, January 30, 1984

Robert McKnight was arrested in the hallway of 45 Tiemann Place at 8:30 in the morning on January 29.  Police could not give a motive for the crime.  McKnight was charged with attempted murder of a police officer.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

An early example of Emery Roth's apartment building designs and one of its most striking, The Whitestone does not get the adulation it deserves.  While remarkably intact on the exterior, its lack of landmark designation makes it vulnerable to desecration.  

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The 1911 Zinn Building - 210 Eleventh Avenue

 

photograph by Jim Henderson

Around 1847 when he was 16 years old, Simon Zinn left his native Bavaria.  Upon arriving in New York City, he found employment in a metal goods firm.  By the late 1880s, he was a partner in Zinn & Messer, which manufactured a vast variety of small metal goods like frames and clasps.  The firm's name had became Simon Zinn & Co. before Simon's death in May 1897.

Simon Zinn's widow, Mary, and her sons, Arthur and Martin, took over the firm.  The following year, they established an ancillary company, The Gem Cutlery Company to manufacture safety razors.  By 1907, the two businesses required a large facility.

On November 1 that year, The New York Times reported that the Zinns had purchased the two buildings at 210 to 216 Eleventh Avenue, on the southeast corner of 25th Street.  They were one- and three-stories tall, respectively.  The family did not move quickly to replace the structures, but a disaster three years later forced their hands.

On October 4, 1910, The New York Times reported on "One of the most spectacular fires New York has seen in years."  The blaze began in the lumberyards "on the North River water front" between 23rd and 26th Street.  The city's entire fleet of fireboats helped firefighters on the ground.   In the end, $1.5 million worth of property was destroyed and the riverfront from Tenth to Eleventh Avenue, from 24th Street to the north side of 26th Street was leveled.

Ten days later, the architectural firm of Shire & Kaufman filed plans for an 11-story "brick factory" for the Zinns.  The plans projected the construction cost at $300,000, or about $10.2 million in 2026.  Completed in 1911, the steel-frame Zinn Building was designed in an Arts & Crafts take on Gothic.  The three-story base included double-height segmental arches within banded piers.  The seven-story mid-section was faced in beige brick, its vast windows stacked within full-height arches.  The supports of the tenth floor piers took the form of medieval grotesques, and the building's corner sections rose above the roofline.  The northwestern corner sprouted a clock tower.

By 1940 only a stump of the clock tower survived.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Gem Cutlery Co. was as successful (if not more so) as Simon Zinn & Co.  An article in the October 1913 issue of Exporters' Review said, "The 'Gem' safety razors are among the best known safety razors in the United States, the Gem Cutlery Co. having been pioneers in the manufacture of these indispensable toilet requisites."

The Popular Magazine, November 1913 (copyright expired)

Emanuel Grammici was hired in April 1915 as a press operator for Simon Zinn & Co.  The 25-year-old earned $1.18 per day, or about $38 in 2026 terms.  In operating the power press, he created metal inlays.  Less than a month after starting his new job, on May 6, he suffered a horrific accident.  According to legal papers, "in placing the inlay in the die, he accidentally released the power, catching his fingers between the die and punch."  In an instant, all of Grammaci's fingers on his right hand were severed.

Mary Zinn died in May 1919.  She had been highly involved in the operation of the two companies since her husband's death.  Just four months later, in September, Arthur and Martin sold the Gem Cutlery Company for $4 million, a staggering $72.5 million today.

The void in the Zinn Building was filled by the newly-formed Automatic Straight Air Brake Co.  The Wall Street Journal announced on May 14, 1920, "The company has obtained a desirable location for manufacturing purpose, at 210 Eleventh avenue."  And on November 9, the periodical reported, "The Automatic Straight Air Brake Co. is already in production at its plant at 210 Eleventh Avenue."

Arthur and Martin Zinn now focused on the Simon Zinn Inc.'s metal novelty goods.  In 1920, they added their patented vanity cases to the line.

An advertisement for the Zinns' patented vanity case featured a photo of the Zinn Building with the clock tower atop the corner.  The American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review, May 1923 (copyright expired)

In 1924, the Zinns moved their operation to Bristol, Connecticut.  The building was sold to the newly-formed 210 Eleventh Avenue Corporation.  The syndicate was composed of Paul Baron and his sons, Louis J., Abner, Samuel T., Harry and Morton Harold.

Paul Baron was born in Russia and entered the paper manufacturing business in 1882.  He and his sons founded the Royal Card & Paper Corporation in 1913.  The firm produced a variety of papers and card stock and was the first producer of gift-wrapping paper in the United States.

Giftwares magazine, May, 1929

In an early example of environmental regulation, the Royal Paper Company was fined $100 by Magistrate Edward Thompson on September 24, 1951 for air pollution.  Murray Berger, an inspector of the Bureau of Smoke Control, "had witnessed on several inspections," according to The New York Times, of the firm's permitting "dense smoke from the smokestack."

When Morton Harold Baron died in 1986, all his brothers had predeceased him.  Shortly afterward, the Royal Paper Company closed.

At the time of Baron's death, the Chelsea neighborhood was seeing a transformation from industry to art as lofts were converted to gallery spaces.  In 1999, the Robert Mann and the Pardo-Sheehan galleries were in the Zinn Building, joined the following year by the Edward Thorp and the Urban Architecture galleries.  

photograph by the author

Today 210 Eleventh Avenue is known as The Chelsea Arts Centre, its realtor boasting it is "the home to cutting edge creative and high-fashion tenants."  Astoundingly, the lower floors have never been brutalized and Shire & Kaufman's 1911 design is greatly intact.

The 1907 Camera Building -- 122-124 East 25th Street

 

On April 27, 1907, the Brunswick Realty Co. acquired the two vintage, three-story houses at 122 and 124 East 25th Street and hired architect Frederick C. Zobel to design a loft-and-store building on the site.  Completed at a cost of $100,000 (the equivalent of $3.44 million in 2025), Zobel's seven-story design was highly influenced by the current Arts & Crafts movement.  Steel frame construction made possible vast show windows at the first and second floors.  Both levels were framed in white terra cotta architraves.  Metal infill with paneled spandrels created three stacks of paired windows in the four-story midsection.  Drip moldings at the sixth and seventh floors recalled the domestic architecture in the neighborhood half a century earlier.  The top floor sat upon a dentiled intermediate cornice and an understated terminal cornice capped the whole. 

Gothic Revival drip moldings like those on the vintage brownstone next door (right) inspired the top floors of the Camera Building.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Despite being named the Camera Building, 122-124 East 25th Street attracted a variety of businesses.  Among the first tenants was the architectural firm of Pell & Corbett, whose School for Applied Design for Women on Lexington Avenue was just being completed.  The firm was composed of Francis Livingston Pell and Harvey Wiley Corbett. 

The New York Times, October 18, 1908 (copyright expired)

Other initial tenants were the Willow Brook Company, an art gallery; the Woodhull Press; the Magnesia-Asbestos Company; and the Arden Press.

The Willow Brook Company staged exhibitions in its space.  In December 1910, for instance, the New York Evening Post reported, "A collection of water colors by Mrs. W. J. Stillman, better known, perhaps, as Marie Stillman, who became a pre-Raphaelite under the guidance of Rosetti, is being exhibited at the rooms of the Willow Brook Company, Nos. 122-124 East Twenty-fifth Street."

An unusual tenant was the Waterman Institute, here as early as 1911.  The facility produced and prescribed medications that promised to cure a variety of disorders.  An article in the Atlanta, Georgia newspaper The Constitution said in part:

It is estimated that within a comparatively short time nearly three thousand persons addicted to the use of opium or morphine in some form, have taken advantage of the offer of the Waterman Institute, 124 East 25th street...to send a free trial supply of a truly remarkable home remedy.

And an article in The Springport Signal on April 6, 1911 said, "Advices from every direction fully confirm previous reports that the remarkable treatment for epilepsy being administered by the consulting physicians of the Dr. Waterman Institute is achieving wonderful results."

Perhaps the first dry goods businesses in the building came in 1915 when Silverberg, Kraft & Co., ribbon manufacturers; and Hawkeye Embroidery Company signed leases.  But the Camera Building continued to house a wide variety of tenants.  Others included the State Specialty Co., which marketed inexpensive novelties; the Foreign Tool & Machinery Company; and the Price Trade Publishing Company.

The Billboard, May 3, 1913 (copyright expired)

Government contracts during World War I were highly profitable.  Henry T. Price, head of the Price Trade Publishing Company, was also a member of the American Defense Society and in 1917 charged representatives of the Quartermaster Corps of the United States Army of graft.  He notified U.S. Senator James W. Wadsworth Jr. that companies were being forced to pay kickbacks before being awarded a contract.

On December 25, 1917, the New York Herald reported that Price produced a shoemaker, Peter Sebald, who was approached by a sergeant regarding repairing 700 pairs of Army footwear.  Sebald told him that he usually charged $1.50 per pair, but for that quantity he would lower the price to $1.00.

"You don't want to charge $1," the sergeant said, "You want to charge $1.25."  Sebald was told, "When you get your check, you give me $175."  

In 1919, the Big Sisters, Inc. leased space.  The group would remain for several years and on December 24, 1922, The New York Times reported, "The Protestant Big Sisters had a celebration for 200 children at 122 East Twenty-fifth Street yesterday, and forty baskets of food were distributed to families in need."

The offices of the National Association of Employing Lithographers were here as early as 1922.  It acted as a union employment agency.  An interesting tenant was James Chittick, who ran a textile school.  His 20-session courses cost $50--paid in advance.  (The tuition was a substantial $875 in today's money.)

New-York Tribune, September 20, 1921 (copyright expired)

The Vocational Service for Juniors moved in around 1923.  Founded in 1910, the organization awarded scholarships to needy high school students who otherwise would have to drop out of school to help support their families.  A letter to the editor of The New York Times on March 8, 1923 explained, "Five dollars keeps a child in school a week, $125 keeps a child in school a term, $250 keeps a child in school a session.  Even then, a child must often work after school and on Saturdays to make both ends meet."

A letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post from Mrs. Edward C. Henderson, president of the Board of Managers of the Vocational Service for Juniors, on January 26, 1927 followed up on some of its 700 scholarship graduates.  "Some are out in the world following trades and professions; some are working their way through college."

A less reputable tenant was the Knickerbocker Merchandising Company, Inc.  On October 6, 1925, The New York Times reported that the firm and its executives, Maurice Innerfield and Emanuel Seaman, had been indicted "with having used the mails to defraud retail grocers out of nearly $130,000."  The company's "high-powered" salesmen pressured more than 5,000 merchants to join the "Permanent Associate Buying Service Membership" to obtain groceries at low prices.  It was all a scam.

A renovation completed in 1939 resulted in offices and salesrooms throughout the building.  It was likely at this time that a zig-zagging iron fire escape was installed that necessitated the notching of the cornice.

The original second floor window configuration survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A two-year renovation of the building was begun in 1969 for the Optometric Center of New York.  Founded in 1956, it provided an eye care clinic and continued optometric education following the closing of Columbia University's optometry program.  The center's research was reflected in 1969 when a survey of 500 patients discovered that "Nearly 18 per cent of Medicaid patients received 'unsatisfactory care' on eye problems," as reported by The New York Times on October 2.

On October 23, 1971, the N.Y. Amsterdam News reported, "The New York State Optometric Association has made funds available to the Optometric Center, earmarked for students for minority groups...The new college will be located at 122 East 25th Street, the present site of the Optometric Center, and will occupy about half of the center."  The college would eventually become the SUNY College of Optometry.

The Optometric Center remained until 1983 when the building was converted to offices.  Then, in 2003, the upper floors were renovated to residential use--one apartment each on the second through sixth floors, and a duplex on the seventh and penthouse levels (the later unseen from the street).  The renovation including restoring the notched cornice.

photographs by the author

The Hiram and Rosalind Bloomingdale Mansion - 11 East 80th Street

 

Born in 1875, Hiram Collenberger Bloomingdale was one of three sons of Lyman Bloomingdale, co-founder of Bloomingdale Brothers' department store.  On December 9, 1908, he married Rosalind Schiffer in Delmonico's, the New York Herald noting, "Mr. and Mrs. Bloomingdale will spend three months on the Pacific coast and next autumn will live at No. 11 East Eightieth street."

The newspaper's timeline was a bit optimistic.  Just over a month before the wedding, on October 24, 1908, the Record & Guide reported that Bloomingdale had purchased the four-story, high-stooped brownstone from Michael Hyman.  The article said he would replace it with "a 6-story American basement dwelling for his own occupancy."

While the newlyweds were on their honeymoon, on January 20, 1909 The New York Times reported that Schwartz & Gross had filed plans for the new mansion, projecting the cost at $50,000 (about $1.78 million in 2025).  The article said, "The facade is to be of brick, finished with limestone and terra cotta, of Colonial design, with a mansard roof and central entrance with staircase."

Schwartz & Gross's design for the five-story mansion, indeed, drew from 18th century precedents, notably in the stylized Georgian entrance and fanlight, and the mansard's Palladio-inspired dormer.  Other details, like the geometric brick-and-stone spandrels between the second and third floors reflected the current Arts & Crafts movement.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Construction was completed late in 1910 and Rosalind quickly began hosting.  On February 12, 1911, The New York Times noted, "Mrs. Hiram Bloomingdale of 11 East Eightieth Street was at home on Thursday and Friday afternoons."  (Publishing one's "at homes" informed socialites when they could make social calls.)

On August 18, 1912, the Bloomingdales welcomed their first son, Lyman Gustave, named after his grandfather.  A second, Alfred Schiffer, arrived on April 15, 1916.  The family's 70-acre country estate was in Ossining, New York.

The domestic bliss within the Bloomingdale household dissolved early in 1919.  On April 22, Rosalind telephoned Hiram at his office.  He recounted the call to the courts later, saying she told him that "she had left his home and was living at the Chatham Hotel with their children."  According to him, he rushed home to find that "she had taken with her silverware, linens, glassware, &c."

Three weeks later, on May 14, The New York Times reported that Rosalind had filed suit for separation "on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment."  She asked for $50,000 a year in alimony (more than $900,000 in 2025 terms).  The article mentioned, "Mrs. Bloomingdale is 29 years old and her husband is 42."  The next month, Rosalind leased a house in Elberon, New Jersey and took Lyman and Alfred with her.

Hiram seemed to have been more upset about the thought of losing his sons than his wife and a messy and public custody battle ensued.  In court on July 15, 1919, he made an emotional plea to Justice Ford, painting Rosalind as, essentially, an absentee mother.  He said in part,

There is nothing in the world that I love so dearly as I do my children.  My elder son has been my steady and constant companion ever since babyhood.  I take him out walking on every opportunity and spent practically every Saturday and Sunday with him up to the time my wife left me.

In stark contrast, he said, "Mrs. Bloomingdale was rarely with the children on Saturdays and Sundays.  She was either playing tennis, going to bridge parties, visiting or attending to her social duties."  Bloomingdale said that while he listened to the boys' prayers each night, Rosalind did not.  "I used to play with the children, while my wife delegated their care, largely, to servants."

While the divorce and custody hearings played out, Hiram moved in with his brother, Irving, at 850 Park Avenue.  In May 1920, he sold 11 East 80th Street to theater owner and agent Martin Beck.  The New-York Tribune reported that he purchased it "as his home."  But he apparently quickly decided otherwise and resold the house to William Kingsland Macy.

Born on November 21, 1889 to George H. and Kate Carter Macy, William went by his first initial and middle name.  When he purchased 11 East 80th Street he was a stock broker and president of the Union Pacific Tea Co.  Moving into the mansion with him was his widowed mother.  She died here on May 14, 1921 and her funeral was held in the house on the 16th.

Kingsland's country home was on Long Island.  He increasingly spent more time there, and in 1926 he was appointed chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Committee.  By then he was occupying the Long Island house year-round.  The previous winter season he had leased the townhouse to Robert Hazlehurst McAdoo and his wife, Lorraine Arnold Rowan.  Born in 1898, McAdoo had served as a Naval Aviator in World War I.  He and Lorraine were married on December 24, 1923.

On December 16, 1925, The New York Times announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. McAdoo, now at the Gladstone, will go next week to their house at 11 East Eightieth Street."

Lorraine Rowan McAdoo, photo by Edward Steichen, Vogue, November 15, 1925 (copyright expired)

Lorraine was the daughter of the late Robert Arnold Rowan and Laura Madeline Schwartz.  By the time she married McAdoo, her mother had become a princess, the wife of Prince Domenica Napoleone Orsini of Italy.  The New York Evening Post said, "The Orsini family is one of the oldest and most aristocratic in Italy."

On October 5, 1926, The New York Evening Post reported that Prince and Princess Orsini had arrived on the Aquitania and were staying at the St. Regis Hotel for two weeks.  The article said the couple "will visit relations of the Princess," including, of course, the McAdoos.

W. Kingsland Macy sold 11 East 80th Street to Henry Dickerson Steers and his wife, the former Adeline Boardman Coster, that year.  Steers was the president and founder of the sand and gravel corporation Henry Steers, Inc.  The couple, who were married in Grace Church on October 22, 1889, had two sons, Henry Coster and Charles Robert Coster.  Henry was associated with his father's firm.  He was 36 years old and still unmarried when his parents purchased 11 East 80th Street.  

The Steers' country estate was in Port Chester, New York.  Adeline and Henry were there on November 4, 1928 when Henry died at the age of 63.  His entire estate, equal to $26.3 million today, was left to Adeline.

Henry Coster Steers finally found romance in Mercer Dunlop.  The couple was married in the Plaza Hotel on February 3, 1930.  Charles stood in as his best man.  

In the meantime, following her mourning period, Adeline had returned to society life.  On November 25, 1932, for instance, The New York Sun reported that she "will give a dinner party at her house on Tuesday, December 27, before the junior holiday dance at the Plaza Hotel."  The event was in honor of Adeline's granddaughter Phebe.

Adeline Steers sold 11 East 80th Street in 1942.  That year the house was converted to apartments.  Among the initial tenants were Army Major Dexter S. French and his wife, the former Cuyler Nicoll; and Dr. Alfred Weil.  Weil was a diagnostician and radiologist.  He father, Dr. Adolf Weil, was the discoverer of Weil's disease, better known today as leptospirosis.

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim occupied an apartment here in the mid-1950s.  While living here he worked on the lyrics of West Side Story and Gypsy.  On September 26, 1957, he wrote to Leonard Bernstein, saying in part:

West Side Story means much more to me than a first show, more even than the privilege of collaborating with you and Arthur [Laurents] and Jerry [i.e. Jerome Robbins].  It marks the beginning of what I hope will be a long and enduring friendship.  Friendship is a thing I give and receive rarely, but for what it's worth I want you to know you have it from me always.

Among Sondheim's neighbors in the building was children's author, photographer and model Dare Wright.  While Sondheim was working on West Side Story, she was finishing her first book, The Lonely Doll, published in 1957.  It made The New York Times Best Seller list that year.  (In 2010, the British newspaper The Guardian would list The Lonely Doll as one of the ten best illustrated children's books "of all time.")

As early as 2023, the Meredith Rosen Gallery occupied space in the building.  From the exterior, the Bloomingdale mansion is essentially unchanged since its completion in 1910.

photographs by the author

The Nippon Club (Iglesia Adventista) -- 161 West 93rd Street

 

photograph by Jim Henderson

On May 14, 1905, The New York Times reported, “Leading Japanese residents of New York yesterday organized the Nippon Club, which will occupy a handsome house at 44 West Eighty-fifth Street, now a private residence.”  The newspaper noted that the Nippon Club would be the only large organization of its kind outside Japan.  “The membership will include Japanese bankers and merchants, those represented in the professions and the Government service.”  The club was founded by Japanese chemist Jōkichi Takamine.  (His development of the enzyme taka diastase, which breaks down starch, had garnered him a fortune of $30 million, according to the Japan Times decades later.)

After having leased the West 85th Street house for six years, on November 18, 1911, the Record & Guide reported that the Nippon Club had purchased the houses at 161 through 165 West 93rd Street, noting, "A 3-story clubhouse will be erected from designs by John V. Van Pelt."  Instead of demolishing the structures, however, on March 1, 1912, The Sun reported that Van Pelt had "filed plans for extensive alterations to the three three story dwellings," adding, "The entire interior will be remodelled [sic] and the facade rebuilt."

The interior, after the removal of all party walls, will have a large public dining room on the main floor, with a Sukiyaki room on the third floor and several large reception rooms.  All of these rooms are to be finished in cedar wood, being carved and designed in the Japanese style.  The three buildings will be converted into one structure, with the main entrance in the middle.

The renovations cost the club $30,000, or about $972,000 in 2025 terms.  Van Pelt blended the Chicago School and Arts & Crafts styles.  Interestingly, his plans included faience (glazed ceramic tiles) "under and over each window."  Instead, the final geometric designs were all done in two-toned brick.  Stealing Van Pelt's architectural show was the projecting cornice, described by Edison Monthly in 1915 as "the only discoverable hint of Asia."  Indeed, according to The Sun, "The roof will be of the peaked style covered with corrugated terra cotta tile, thereby giving the building its pagoda appearance."

image by frog17 via wikimapia.org

The Nippon Club moved into its new home in September 1912.  The Japan Society Bulletin said it, "boasts all American fittings from billiard room to office, in addition to several floors furnished in Japanese style, where the tired business men feel again the spell of home in far Nippon."  As the bulletin suggested, the motif was expectedly Japanese with fusuma, or sliding screen doors, and Japanese-style furnishings including teakwood tables, bronze statues, and hand-made Japanese lanterns.  There were a ballroom, billiards room, library, dining room, smoking room, and parlors.  

Obviously, not all of the furnishings were Japanese in style.  postcard image courtesy of Lynne Miller

Items brought from the former clubhouse, according to The Sun, were "paintings on silk and velvet, fine specimens of the pillar print or kakemono-ye, a lot of tableware, including sets of beautiful, fragile Imari and lacquered tables and dishes."  The article noted, "The thing that the club places most value upon, for patriotic reasons, is a scroll from the Mikado presented to the club by Admiral Count Togo, last and most distinguished of Japanese visitors."

The club was fashioned after exclusive New York gentlemen's clubs, and The Sun remarked on January 21, 1912, "The first thing that will strike the curious inquirer is the astonishing resemblance the club bears to American clubs of the best type."  One notable difference, however, was the tradition that members honored upon arriving.  "But the Japanese member is not so likely to insist upon its ranking as upon the great comfort if affords.  To the Nippon he may go at evening after the day's work is done and slip on his night gown and rest," said The Sun.  The article explained:

Not our kind of night gown, but a ukata [sic], which is a loosely, hanging kimono of light weight material that drops straight from the shoulders and is girt about the waist by a thin cord.  The ukata [sic] is cool and comfortable.

The club routinely hosted dignitaries and countrymen.  On the evening of February 24, 1915, the Nippon Club held a dinner for visiting officers of the Japanese Navy.  Among the members present were the Consulate General of Japan, T. Nakamura; and several Japanese-born bankers.  Not invited was a young man, Yataro Tanaka, who "wanted to pay his respects to the officers," according to The Sun.  In attempting to do so, he upset the traditional decorum within the club.  According to the club's manager, A. H. Ohnishi, at 10:30, "He rushed into our parlor, where was thirty-one full dressed guests, and spoiled all their happiness."  

Tanaka was ousted, but two hours later he returned.  He broke into the front door, creating chaos amid the dignified event.  In the West Side Court, A. H. Ohnishi complained that he, "broke our front door and got into our club house.  He threatened our men by the violation at so late last night and there was no reason with him to do such things."  Tanaka was fined $5 for disorderly conduct.

postcard image courtesy of Lynne Miller

Consul General Nakamura and other members hosted a dinner on November 30 that year in honor of Baron Ei-ichi Shibusawa.  He was described by The Sun as the "foremost business man of Japan" and "to whom more than to any other his nation owes her commercial and industrial transformation, hater of jingoes, friend of peace and of America."  Shibusawa spoke on the ongoing war in Europe, congratulating America "on being the only world power that is not in the great war."  Ironically, given the events that would unfold nearly three decades later, he predicted that Japan and America "will be able to do much in preventing the recurrence of such disastrous calamities to humanity in the future."

The Nippon Club continued to host eminent visitors.  In September 1917, Viscount Ishii "and the other members of the Imperial Japanese Commission" were guests here; on the evening of July 23, 1918, a dinner was held in honor of Prince Yoshihisa Tokugawa; and on November 17 that year, the club hosted a dinner for visiting retired Japanese Army Colonel H. H. Hirayama.

On July 23, 1922, The New York Times reported that Jōkichi Takamine had died, saying he "founded the Nippon Club" and was "widely known for his work for friendly relations between Japan and United States."  Takamine's body was brought to the Nippon Club for a memorial service on July 24.  The New York Times reported that his casket, upon which were crossed Japanese and United States flags, was "surrounded by more than three hundred floral pieces from prominent Japanese and American friends."  The following morning, Takamine's body was taken to St. Patrick's Cathedral for his funeral.

postcard image courtesy of Lynne Miller

Prince and Princess Tokugawa visited New York in 1931.  On April 13, The New York Times reported, "The Nippon Club at 161 West Ninety-third Street, composed of leading members of the Japanese colony here, was eager to have the royal couple visit their clubhouse, and the Prince and Princess found time to do it."  

Three years later, the Prince was back.  On February 27, 1934, The New York Times announced, "Prince Iyesato Tokugawa last night extended greetings to his countrymen in New York at a dinner held in the Nippon Club...The speeches were in Japanese."

On February 11, 1940, a celebration of the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire was held here.  The New York Times said that 250 members made "solemn pledges of fealty to Emperor Hirohito."  Consul General Kaname Wakasugi conducted the event.  "Later they rejoiced over buffet tables laden with native delicacies, sang folk songs and toasted the world's oldest dynasty in sake, a rice wine."

A Japanese flag hangs above the entrance awning.  postcard image courtesy by Lynne Miller

Later that year, the clubhouse became involved in at least one Nazi espionage incident.  Born in Germany, William Sebold  became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1936 and worked in aircraft and industrial plants.  Three years later, he was approached by the Gestapo who persuaded him to cooperate with the Reich.  In the meantime, Everett Minster Roeder was a draftsman who designed materials for the U.S. Army and Navy.  Sebold delivered German instructions to Roeder in various places throughout the city.  According to Norman Ridley in his Spying for Hitler: Nazis Who Infiltrated America, "At the end of October 1940, Sebold received instructions from Germany to send Roeder to a rendezvous at the Nippon Club at 161 West 93rd Street.  This would reveal yet another method that the Abwehr were employing to have stolen documents transported safely back to Germany."

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.  American reaction was swift.  The next day, The New York Times published a photograph of the steward of the Nippon Club locking the doors under the watchful glare of a policeman.

The New York Times, December 8, 1941

The newspaper reported, "The Nippon Club at 161 West Ninety-third Street was closed by the police.  Twelve Japanese who were there when the police came were escorted to their homes.  Silent crowds watched their departure.  There were no demonstrations."

The clubhouse was seized by the Office of the Alien Property Custodian and it sat dark for more than two years.  On February 6, 1944, The New York Times reported that the Alien Property Custodian had sold the building to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.  The article noted that the lodge "would be occupied some time in April after alterations."

Two weeks later, on February 21, an auction of the contents of the Nippon Club was held.  Rampant anti-Japanese sentiments, however, greatly affected the bidding of the rare and valuable items, including eight ceremonial Japanese swords and the custom-made furniture.  A spokesman said, "nobody seemed to be very interested."

The prediction that the Elks would move into the clubhouse in April was optimistic.  It was not until December 16, 1944 that "the mother lodge of Elkdom" dedicated the building, as reported by The New York Times.  The structure and the renovations had cost the fraternal organization $75,000--about $1.3 million today.

Fourteen years later, the Elks sold the property to the American Theatre Wing.  Renovations resulted in rehearsal halls in the basement, first and second floors; offices and half of a duplex apartment on the third; and the top floor of the duplex on the fourth.

On September 15, 1958, Mayor Robert F. Wagner officiated at the dedication of the new headquarters.  According to its president, Helen Menkin, the new building would permit "our organization to carry out our expansion ideas more effectively."  It held full-time classes for 400 students with a faculty of 40 teachers.  Among the well-known names of the theater who attended the event were Ed Begley, Lawrence Lagner, Miriam Hopkins, and Mrs. Bert Lytell.

photograph by frog17 from wikimapia.org

The American Theatre Wing sold the property in 1968 to a Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Iglesia Adventista Broadway.  The congregation converted the lower floors for worship purposes with residential spaces on the upper floors.

many thanks to reader Lynne Miller who suggested this post