The Mary Dawson House - 218 Avenue A

 

The offset door (right) was originally the access to the rear house and yard.

By 1853 Mary Dawson ran the boarding house at No. 218 Avenue A.  It was a respectable way of making a living since the death of her husband, Patrick.  A mix of the popular Greek Revival and Italianate styles, the architectural detailing of her 25-foot wide house was modest--molded lintels and a dentiled cornice.  In the yard behind was a second, smaller house for additional rental income.

Two of Mary's tenants were Irish immigrants.  Andrew Bray worked as a laborer and Mary McBride was the widow of Owen McBride.   Her other tenant was German--reflecting the increasing German population in the neighborhood.  Diederich Ahrens and his wife Mary not only lived in the house, but he ran his grocery store from the ground floor.

The tenant list in front and back buildings continued to be exclusively Irish (with the exception of Ahrens) for years.  Along with Andrew Bray and Mary McBride three years later were William Daley, Hugh Fitzpatrick, John McGovern and Bridget Walsh.  Girls whose families fled the Great Famine in Ireland most often found domestic work.  On November 1, 1854 an advertisement appeared in the New York Herald that read "Wanted--A situation by a respectable young woman, as chambermaid and seamstress; has no objections to do the housework of a small family; has good city reference.  Can be seen at 218 Avenue A."

On June 15, 1860 Dietrich and Mary Ahrens had a baby girl.  Tragically the baby died a year later on July 20.  The following day The New York Herald announced simply, "The remains will be taken from the residence of her parents, No. 218 avenue A...to the Lutheran Cemetery for interment, this afternoon, at half-past two o'clock."

Among the other tenants at the time was Michael Mulvany, who was a "driver"--most likely driving a delivery dray for a factory or railroad.  Three years later, with the Civil War raging in the South, the Government enacted a conscription act which called for all males between 20 and 45 years old (including aliens who intended to become citizens) to register for a draft.  A loophole was created whereby an exception could be purchased for $300--around $6,300 in today's money.

Working class immigrants like Michael Mulvany, of course, had no way to raise that amount of money.  When the city directories were issued later that year Mulvany was still listed at No. 218 Avenue A, but his profession was now "United States Army."

By the end of the war horse-drawn streetcars ran up and down Avenue A.  The Hyland family lived in No. 218 in 1870.  On the afternoon of February 13 Andrew Hyland, who was nine-years old, was coming home from Sunday school with two friends.  They saw a streetcar approaching but, according to the New York Herald, "attempted to cross the track ahead of the horses."  Andrew was "nearly opposite his father's residence" when he "fell on the rail track and was run over."  The newspaper reported "The remains were taken up and removed to the house, where Coroner Flynn was requested to hold an inquest."  The driver was arrested pending an investigation.

By 1872 the house was owned by the Radley family.  Joseph Radley operated his leather goods business in the store.  He and his wife, Eliza, had a daughter, Mary.  His father, Ignatius, who was retired, lived with the family.

Interestingly, the tenant list, which so recently had been almost exclusively Irish, was now almost totally German.  The names of Radley's roomers included, Gauss, Schmeder, Schuhknecht, Hinkel, Eberwein, Zittel and Kamper, for instance.

Eliza Radley died "suddenly" on January 7, 1873.  The funeral of the 44-year old was held in the house two days later.  Another funeral was held here on December 4, 1875.  Ignatius died at the age of 84 two days earlier.

By 1878 Mary Radley was helping her father with his business.  On March 13 that year she walked to the German Exchange Bank at the corner of Bowery and Stanton Street to make a deposit of $299--a considerable $7,900 in cash today.  No doubt for her safety, an acquaintance, Frank Wedel, accompanied her.

When they arrived at the bank they found it crowded and, as reported by The New York Times, "Wedel told Miss Radley that if it were inconvenient or unpleasant for her to push her way through the crowd, he would go up and deposit the money for her and save her the annoyance."  Mary agreed and Wedel took the money, disappeared into the crowd, and fled the city.

Investigators quickly tracked him down in Baltimore.  He was arrested nine days later and on the evening of March 22 Detective George H. Dilks returned on the train with Frank Wedel in tow.  He was taken to the Tombs awaiting trial.

Joseph Radley's tenants continued to be nearly all German into the 1880's.  The residents of the rear house in 1880 included painter Joseph Ferber; Conrad Flohr, Mary Sadler, a widow; and carpenter Henry Schell.  An exception was James Reed, who made his living as a stencil cutter.

Tenant Margaret Miller worked as a domestic.  The 60-year old had finished the laundry at her employer's flat at No. 48 Avenue A on March 20, 1882 and began hanging it out to dry.  The rear courtyards of apartment buildings were crisscrossed with clotheslines on pulleys.  As she stretched out to hang an article of clothing, she lost her balance and fell four stories to the yard below.  She was killed instantly.

The rather primitive conditions for the residents was evidenced in August 1906 when the property was offered for sale.  An advertisement in The New York Times described the buildings as "4-story tenements, toilets in yard."

Although the majority of the German population moved north to the Yorkville neighborhood before World War I, the area around No. 218 continued to be a mix of ethnicities.  Joseph Kuhn lived here in January 1926 when he submitted his name to a raffle hosted by radio station WRNY.  An article in The Sun's "Radio Section" on January 23 began "Number 13 disproved its reputation for Joseph Kuhn, 50 year old blind man, who lives at 218 Avenue A, for on Sunday night his name was the thirteenth to be drawn in the Listeners-In-Contest."

The article said, "Joseph Kuhn has been blind since the age of 6, when the ravages of scarlet fever deprived him of his sight.  He lives in a little drab two room flat on Avenue A and manages to eke out a sustenance with what he earns playing the piano and the little support the State gives him."  Kuhn's win earned him a "five tube radio set."

The building as it appeared around 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

George Siglar lived in the building in the Great Depression years.  At around 1:30 on the morning of October 21, 1932 he was riding in the automobile of Edward Fauer who was apparently bringing him home.  They had almost made it when Fauer noticed a friend at East 13th Street and Avenue A and pulled the car over to talk.  Just as Fauer was about to drive off again, two men appeared and demanded money.

In the affray that followed Siglar was stabbed in the chest, suffered a broken nose and was robbed of $31.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "The two robbers then threw Siglar and Fauer from the machine."  One of the thugs jumped in and drove off, leaving his accomplice on his own.

Fauer's and Siglar's shouts were heard by a patrolman who caught Tony Fasulo, the one who had stabbed Siglar.  He had an interesting alibi at police headquarters.  "In the lineup Fasulo insisted he was drunk and did not know what happened."

The gritty East Village neighborhood changed in the third quarter of 20th century as artists and musicians moved in.  Today the apartments in both the front and back buildings at No. 218 Avenue A are outfitted with modern amenities like stainless steel appliances--and indoor plumbing.  Realtors romantically and incorrectly market the rear apartments as being in "the carriage house."  But other than a coat of paint, a 20th century fire escape, and a reconfiguration of the residential entrance, little has changed outwardly to the widow Mary Dawson's house.

photograph by the author

A Rich History of Immigrants- from Germans to Hispanics- 220 Avenue A

 

Around 1859 the four-story store and tenement was erected at No. 220 Avenue A, just south of East 14th Street.  There were two shops on the ground floor, separated by the residential entrance.  In the rear yard was a second, smaller building which was also held rented rooms.  

Between 1850 and 1859 nearly 1,000,000 Germans arrived in America and those who remained in New York mostly settled in this neighborhood--earning it the name Kleindeutchland, or Little Germany.  The tenants in No. 220 Avenue A most likely spoke only German.  In 1861 they included grocer Frederick Jung; George Graeff, a metal smith; Charles Weismann, a painter; Martin Wolf, who was a tailor; and the widow Margaret Bauman who seems to have been the landlady.

Frederick Jung's rooms were very convenient to his business, since he operated his grocery store downstairs.  The other space was a biergarten, the back room of which was sometimes used as a meeting place.  

At the time powerful newspapermen like Horace Greeley and political groups like the Free-Soil Party were pressuring Congress to enact a bill that would encourage intrepid citizens to settle in the West.  Such an act would present a great opportunity to immigrants.  On April 12, 1860 The New York Times reported on a meeting of the Working Men's Political Union.  It said, "A meeting of the Society which has assumed the above title was held last night in the German saloon, No. 220 Avenue A.  The object for which it has been ostensibly organized is the promotion of the movement in favor of the passage by Congress of a Homestead bill, securing the public lands in limited quantities to actual settlers...At a pretty late hour the meeting adjourned."

For three violent days in July 1863 New York City was terrorized by what would be known as the Draft Riots.   To augment troops fighting the Civil War, a new law had been enacted to draft men into the army.  But corrupt practitioners focused on the working class—primarily Irish immigrants—while the wealthy bought their way out of service.  What started as a protest against the draft quickly disintegrated into a bloody riot with mobs ransacking homes and businesses, murdering innocent blacks, and beating random civilians caught on the streets.

Following the restoration of order, citizens filed claims for the damages they suffered.  In August Margaret Bauman claimed $83.81, without specifying the exact losses.  It was a significant amount for the widow, about $1,760 by today's standards.

The Avenue A property was purchased by Otto Dietrich Hashagen and his son, Henry Otto, in 1876.  Otto, originally originally a shipbuilder by trade, came to America from Germany with his wife in 1844.  Henry Otto was born the following year.  Six more children would follow.

Hashagen not only moved his family into the building, but his saloon business, too.  Henry was, by now, a printer, but he helped in his father's saloon.  

Among Hashagen's tenants that year were Francis Briggs, a laborer; Julius Hanetsch who listed his occupation as "beer" and most likely worked in the saloon downstairs; and Michael Weiner was a peddler.  Living in the rear building were Henry Koepfel, who ran a candy store; George Kulenkamp, a carpenter, and his wife, Lucy; and another carpenter, Philip Rodenhausen.

Otto and Henry Hashagen made significant improvements to the building in 1878.  He hired architect J. T. O'Brien to add a fifth story and to alter the interior.  O'Brien placed an ambitious metal cornice on the completed structure and graced the openings with unusual cast iron keystones in the form of female portraits.

O'Brien saved Hashagen money by executing details, like the eyebrows over these openings, in brick.  But then gave them the added touch of the unusual cast iron keystones.

As had been the case with the previous saloon, Hashagen's back room doubled as a meeting space which he called Washington Hall.  It was often the venue of political gatherings, such as the meeting of the German Republicans on October 25, 1880, and the angry meeting of between 20 and 30 pawnbrokers on April 24, 1883 following the new law requiring pawnbrokers to pay a yearly license fee of $500, a crippling $13,000 in today's money.

Henry had married Caroline Steger in 1872.  She in childbirth in 1884, but the infant, whom he named Florence, lived.  The Daily Union said "she was left to the care of her father, Henry Hashagen, a saloon keeper at 220 Avenue A.  Naturally she was made much of."

Following Otto Hashagen's death in 1888, Henry became full owner of the Avenue A property.  

In the summer of 1889 Henry sent five-year old Florence to New Jersey to visit an uncle, "in the hope that the country air might do her good."  The Daily Union reported, "While there she made friends with a little spitz dog belonging to a neighbor.  One day, while they played together, the dog, with the meanness and viciousness which characterizes the whole breed, turned on the child and bit her."

Florence was taken to a hospital where the wound was cauterized.  It healed nicely and the incident was forgotten.  When Henry visited Florence a month later on Sunday, August 18 she was "well and comparatively robust."  The Daily Union said "She asked to remain there longer and was gladly indulged."

But when he returned the next Sunday, "she was in horrible convulsions.  On the Wednesday following she suddenly complained of feeling unwell and of difficulty in swallowing."  Henry brought the little girl home, where she only worsened.  The Daily Union said "She was parched with thirst, and the sight of water maddened her.  The very sound of water drawn through the tap in the house sent her into violent convulsions."

Because Henry had never been told about the dog bite, he couldn't give the doctor any information.  Finally, Dr. Veshlage questioned the uncle who remembered the incident.  Two other doctors were brought in, but the hydrophobia was too advanced.  The Union Daily reported "Her weak constitution was a mercy to her.  Heart failure intervened and saved her from the horrible extreme, symptoms of barking and biting."  Nevertheless, on September 1 the newspaper reported "In awful agony and paroxysm of pain, poor little Florence Hashagen, a tot of only 5 years of age, passed away to rest in this city late Friday night."

By 1890 the meeting room was being called Hashagen's Hall.  It was the scene of a Socialist meeting on March 1, 1890 to discuss the recent elections in Germany, and a "mass-meeting of street cleaners, hostlers and cartmen" to denounce the treatment of men employed by the Street Cleaning Department in February 1894, for instance.

By the turn of the century Hashagen's tenants included Irish immigrants.  One of them, Charles Manthey, attempted a heroic act on May 29, 1900 with tragic consequences.

John J. Schneible was a delivery driver for Rouen, Buehler & Son and on that afternoon his horse "took fright" on East 13th Street.   The New York Weekly Press reported "Schnieble was unable to control him, and there was great danger that some one would be hurt as the street was crowded with children."  Manthey saw the horse headed to a group of children.  He ran into the street and grabbed the bridle, but was lifted off his feet and dragged about 30 feet.  The article said "the enraged horse tossed him toward the curb.  Manthey fell on his head, and he was picked up dead."  He had suffered a broken neck.

On May 12 an announcement appeared in The New York Press of the auction of "the fixtures and furniture of [the] saloon" at 220 Avenue A.  Three years later the Hashagen estate sold the property, the New-York Tribune noting on March 24, 1906 that it "has not changed hands for about thirty years."

In 1912 a streetcar ran up the center of Avenue A.  The Fishman family lived in No. 220 that year.  Their son, Henry, who was four years old, darted into the street in front of the building on November 10 right into the path of an oncoming car.  The New York Press reported "The youngster ran into a trolley car and fell under the rear truck, and his leg was crushed above the ankle."  A policeman named Millen ran to the scene and saved the boy's life by using his club and a leather thong to fashion a tourniquet.  The Evening World reported "His left leg was so badly smashed that Dr. Grendy of Bellevue Hospital amputated it and then took the child to the hospital."

The cornice was intact when this photo was taken around 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Tenant Harry Sidora was apparently supposed to be working in the East River dock neighborhood on the afternoon of August 6, 1931.  Instead he took a nap on the roof of the three-story building at No. 18 Corlears Street.  In his sleep, he rolled off.  The New York Sun reported, "the injuries he received in falling are regarded as serious."  The article added "he regained consciousness in Gouveneur Hospital and was able to identify himself."

When the building was sold by the Bank of New York in December 1940 it was described as "a five-story tenement for twenty families."   It was purchased in 1976 by Morris Malek, whom attorney Floyd Feldman, director of the Good Old Lower East Side housing agency described in 1981 as "the operator of some of the worst buildings I have ever seen."

Indeed, in the three years Malek owned No. 220 he was slapped with more than 100 violations including "no heat and hot water, leaks, broken walls, loose brick work and defective fire escapes," according to The Villager.  A fire in 1979 damaged the roof and resulted in the loss of J. T. O'Brien's 1878 cornice.  The Villager reported "According to one tenant, the fire was set by a junkie during a dispute with his wife in a top floor apartment."

The changing demographics of the East Village neighborhood were reflected not only in the new name Loisaida, but in the tenant list.  At the time 100 percent of the residents were Hispanic.

Gentrification of the neighborhood was already beginning when Malek sold No. 220 to John Carrese and Gaspar Mucaria.

According to The Villager, tenants reported "They told us to get out."  The residents, some of whom had been in the building more than two decades, were finally paid to give up their leases.  Brent Sharman, an organizer with the housing group Adopt-A-Building told The Villager he had hoped that they "would fight to remain there and get services restored," but "What can you do?  for the people who lived there $2,000, $5,000 is a lot of money."

With the building vacated, a renovation was begun.  Completed in 1983, it resulted in two apartments per floor in the front building and one per floor in the rear.

The building with its rich history is easily overlooked, but the cast iron faces staring out from above the windows are worth a pause.

photographs by the author

The Teutonia Bank Bldg -- No. 25 Avenue A

By the mid-1850's New York City had more German residents than any city in the world other than Berlin or Vienna.  Most of them settled in the Lower East Side, filling tenements and building social clubs and music halls.  German language churches and newspapers contributed to the area’s nickname of Little German, or Kleindeutchland.

In 1857 a tenement house stood at the southwest corner of Avenue A and 2^nd Street.  Among the German-speaking residents was the Rheinman family—38-year old tailor Charles William Rheinman, his wife Elizabeth, and their two children, Mary who was eight and four-year old Paul.  They had lived at No, 25 Avenue A for about a year in February 1857.

Charles was a drinking man and somewhat moody.  The New York Times said “He was a man of very intemperate habits, and subject, in consequence, to frequent fits of despondency.  He paid no attention to the remonstrances of his wife, and answered her only by undefined threats that ‘he would soon put an end to the matter.’”  As a matter of fact, about a year earlier Elizabeth had overheard him threaten to murder the entire family.

On Sunday morning, February 22 Charles rose early and started breakfast, consisting of coffee and bread.  When the coffee was ready, he woke the family members.  Little Mary was sick so he took the coffee to her bed.  When she turned it down, he forced her to drink it.

Charles drank two cups of coffee, and then went back to bed.  Elizabeth later said “I tasted the coffee; it tasted strangely, and I did not drink it.  I soaked some bread in my cup of coffee and gave it to the youngest child.”

Before long Charles was vomiting, as were the children.  He confessed to his wife that he had put “a shilling’s worth of poison” in the coffee.  The poison was arsenic.  After two hours of agony Charles died.  Paul was next, and little Mary hung on until about 5:00 that evening.

Elizabeth told the examining physician “I have not the slightest idea why he poisoned himself and family, except that he was full of liquor all the time.”

Later that year the neighborhood was rocked by riots.  At about 7:45 p.m. on Sunday, August 9, 1857, two men got into a fight at 4^th Street near Avenue A.  When two policemen tried to break it up, they were besieged by a gang with stones and brickbats.  When other officers came to their aid, the mob grew larger and they were forced to retreat.  Word was sent to the station house and before long a 35-man force was heading to the scene.

The police advanced five abreast in the center of the street as the mob approached hurling stones.  When the skirmish was at its height Germans shot pistols and tossed bricks from rooftops and windows.  In the end police were injured and civilians were dead.

The rioting continued for days.  On August 14 The Times reported “The outbreak of Sunday night was only quieted for a time.  Instead of getting about their business, the German population, with which this portion of the City is crowded to overflowing, gathered in knobs all day and discussed what they described as outrages of the police.”

The corpse of one of the rioters, named Muller, had been taken to the cellar of the tenement house at No. 25 Avenue A.   Police Captain Hartt and an officer went there, which meant moving through a long, narrow basement hall.  After the officers had entered, Hartt was recognized.

When they attempted to leave, their only way out was blocked by a group of angry men “who jostled [Captain Hartt], and seemed disposed to stop him from getting out," recounted The Times.  Hartt and the officer narrowly escaped disaster.  “He presently forced his way through to the street, where he and his companion were surrounded and pelted with stones and brick-bats.  The Captain received a severe blow on the leg from one of the missiles, but otherwise escaped without injury.”

The crowded tenement building would stand for little over a decade more.  As the German population continued to increase, banks cropped up on the Lower East Side which provided their clients the comfort of transacting business in their native language.  Many of the immigrants were uncomfortable—often rightfully so—dealing with bankers whom they could not understand.

In 1868 the Teutonia Savings Bank was incorporated.  The structure at No. 25 Avenue A was either heavily remodeled or replaced.  The architect of the resultant handsome structure is unclear; however the it bears striking similarities to the work of Nicholas Whyte who was working in the area.  His Irwin Building, completed the same year, at the corner of Bowery and Bleecker Street includes several similar elements.

The upper floor offices were entered through the arched doorway, originally above a stoop, at No. 145 East 2nd St.

The four-story Italianate structure was faced in sandstone on the Avenue front and with red brick on the side elevation.   The bank's architecture presented potential depositors with a sense of stability.  Rusticated stone piers, handsome Corinthian pilasters between the upper openings on the Avenue side, and carved stone lintels with double keystones along 2^nd Street spoke of the cost of the edifice.  To the rear a stoop led to the arched doorway of the upper floors.

The offices on the upper floors were leased and the Teutonia Savings Bank operated from ground level.  Things went smoothly for a decade before the bank collapsed under scandal and fraud.

In March 1878 a stranger who gave his name as H. G. Wagner attempted to open a bank account, using a draft for $2,750 drawn by the banking firm of Gossler & Co., in Boston.  The check was accepted; but bank officials were suspicious and investigated the matter.  It turned out to be a forgery and a detective was put on the case.  He sat for days in the President’s office, where he could watch the bank patrons come and go through the glass door.

Wagner was too clever to personally return to withdraw funds; and he offered John Campbell 50 cents to cash a check for him.  Campbell ended up being arrested and Wagner was never caught.

But that was the least of the problems for Teutonia Savings Bank.  Four months later warrants were issued for the arrest of all 15 trustees of the bank.  On July 15 the New-York Tribune ran the headline “Misuse of Bank Funds” and reported on the nearly $30,000 of assets the men had distributed among themselves.

The damning reactions of the press were quick and unmistakable in their language.  As the men were one-by-one taken into custody, The New York Times spat “Most of the persons arrested or to be arrested in the above suit are men having considerable pecuniary means, but as a class they are below the average in intelligence, and in ability either shrewdly or honestly to manage any financial institution.”

On July 23 The Sun was enraged that the trustees had not simply paid back the stolen money.  “Probably they would rather keep the money if they could.  But, as matters stand, that seems to be out of the question; and the stingiest and stupidest of them would rather invest his money in immunity and in hushing things up than wait to have it wrested from him, with costs, added, at the end of a trial.”

Tragically for the depositors, Henry L. Lamb, the Acting Superintendent of the Bank Department in Albany shut down the Teutonia Savings Bank.  An investigation of the books showed a deficit of $148,404.63—a figure that would translate to about $3.5 million today.

The building at No. 25 Avenue A was purchased by George Winter and William Eckert, of Eckert & Winter.  It was converted to offices throughout.  Tenants included the offices of the Tammany Hall General Committee for the Third Assembly District; and Janacek & Kysela, “bankers and steamship agents.”  In 1887 Janacek & Kysela would be marginally involved in a murder mystery.

In February that year Lugarte Heck was found dead in what appeared to be a staged suicide.  Two notes were found near the body, which were quickly exposed as not to be in Heck’s handwriting:

I transfer the sum of $8,300 to Mrs. Annie Schaefer – Lugarte Heck

I bequeath my trunk and contents to Mrs. Annie Schaefer – Lugarte Heck

Annie Schaefer claimed no knowledge of the notes nor of Lugarte’s death.  “May I never again see my children alive if I know anything about the death of Lugarte Heck or the papers found,” she told police. But there was the problem of her husband’s visit to Janacek & Kysela to have a will drawn up in Lugarte Heck’s name a few days before her death.

Vlastimel Kysela testified that Schaeffer had come in the office the Thursday before Heck’s body was discovered.  He said he “wanted a nice will drawn” and asked about the cost.  Kysela told investigators that he “said the will was for an old lady in East Eleventh-street.  She had $8,000 which she wanted to give to the church.  The man added, in German, that this would not do; the bird must be plucked while it had feathers, and he proposed to get something.”

Since Kysela’s notary was not in the office, he told Schaeffer to come back that evening; but he never returned.  Annie Schaefer had to admit her husband had been there.  “My husband did go out to get a will drawn because Lugarte asked him to,” she explained.

By 1894 the former bank space had been converted to Adolph Hirsch’s café.  Police were certain that patrons here were getting more than sausage and spatzle, however.  On February 18 that year the New-York Tribune reported “The place has been watched by the police of the Fifth-st. station, but up to last night every attempt to capture the frequenters failed.”

Authorities had suspected Hirsch of using the restaurant as a front for his illegal gambling den.  On the night of February 17 police raided the place and broke up a poker game.  Hirsch and 22 other men were arrested.  The Tribune reported “Several poker tables, cards and chips were seized.”

But when the detectives entered the second floor, they found more.  “Above the café, the policemen found one hundred packs of playing cards, six roulette tables, twenty-two chairs, a quantity of poker chips, and $2 in cash.  They also captured eighteen men,” according to The New York Times.

The judge apparently had compassion for the gamblers.  He fined each of them $1—about $30 in 2015 dollars.  He was not so lenient with Hirsch, holding him on $1,000 bail.

The Tribune added “It is charged by the police that the place is run in the interest of a number of German tailors, who, in turn, induce Hebrew tailors to go there and try their luck at games of change.”

In 1913 Dr. Charles Schmer's dental offices was on the second floor here.  Also on that floor were the tailor shop of B. Templeberg, and the architectural office of James Fisher.  Another dentist, J. Cantor had his offices on the third floor.

In April that year Dr. Schmer became one of a string of victims of a “burglar band” headed by a female crook.  It started in March, according to Schmer’s assistant, Dr. Adolph Arnstein, when a “mysterious blond woman of striking appearance” came to the “dental parlors” accompanied by a young man.   Arnstein described her as being “flashily dressed.”  She asked Schmer to repair a tooth; but when he examined her he said they were in perfect condition.

So she settled for a teeth cleaning.

A week later she came back, this time with a different young man, and she was now a brunette.  Dr. Arnstein was “surprised at the decided change in the color of the woman’s hair,” but, he professed, “said nothing.”  The man who came with her walked throughout the office, as if inspecting it.  Arnstein said he paid particular attention to the safe and when the dentist asked him what he was doing, he explained he was a dental student and simply interested in the office.

Around April 3 she reappeared to have more work done with yet another man.

At 9:00 on the morning of April 9 Dr. Arnstein opened the office and at once realized that the ground floor lock had been tampered with.  The New-York Tribune advised “The door to the office on the second floor had also been forced.  The heavy safe, usually standing by the windows in the front, or operating office, had been dragged to the rear of the reception room.”

The safe-crackers had wrapped the safe in a heavy carpet to muffle the noise, and nitro-glycerin was used to blow the door.  The robbers rifled through all the rooms of the dental office.  Police were amazed at the brazen robbery.  The crooks did not bother to pull the shades and went about their business with the electric lights on, fully in sight of anyone passing on the other side of the street.

They made off with $3,000 worth of valuables from Dr. Schmer’s office.   Luckily for the dentist, while they were able to blow the door off the safe, they were unable to open one of the inner compartments.  It held “jewelry, gold leaf and other valuables to the amount of $10,000,” according to Schmer.

Before leaving the building, the burglars rifled through the all the other offices, but took nothing.  On April 10 the New-York Tribune reported “The police are now inclined to believe this woman of the changeable hair may be responsible for the series of robberies recently in the lower East Side.  They believe, also, that when they find her, she will be able to put them on the trail of the gang that has been burglarizing pawnshops and cigar stores.

‘Cherchez la femme!’ is the cry.”

Dr. Charles Schmer would remain at No. 25 Avenue A until January 1921, when he moved to the Saint Denis Offices on Broadway at 11^th Street; and architect James Fisher stayed on at least through 1922.

When the building was sold in 1940 it was valued at $20,000.  It became home to magician and nightclub entertainer George Krinog’s G. K. Magic & Novelty House, Inc.   Krinog had a popular nightclub act and amazed audiences across the country.  His operation in the Avenue A building sold tricks and props wholesale to magic dealers.  An ad in The Billboard on September 29, 1945 offered items like the “Hindu bottle and rope,” dribble glasses, exploding matches, and “Squirt coins.”

In 1946 George Krinog was entertaining troops overseas with the U.S.O.  He boarded an airplane when he was needed as a last-minute replacement for Show Unit No. 786, although he belonged to another unit.   The flight went missing on February 5, somewhere in the Philippine Islands.  Krinog was never found.  The G. K. Magic & Novelty House continued in the Avenue A building for about one more year.

The blank scar below the third floor windows testifies to a lost cornice.

In 2004 the building was converted to apartments on the third and fourth floors, with a bar and restaurant on the lower levels.  The 2A Bar was joined in 2015 by rock bar Berlin, which took the basement level.

The lower two floors of the Teutonia Savings Bank building have been gruesomely deformed.  Above the massacre, however, the handsome 1868 façade survives relatively intact.

photographs by the author