The Lost Cullman Bros. Building - 161 Front Street

 

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

Jacob and Joseph F. Cullman learned the tobacco trading business from their father, Ferdinand Kullman, who had been a tobacco merchant in Germany.  Now in America and with a newly-spelled surname, the brothers founded Cullman Bros. in 1892.  The company initially purchased American and foreign grown tobacco for resale to cigar manufacturers.  The enterprising brothers would continually grow their business--adding and changing their plan, acquiring other firms, and diversifying.  By the early 20th century, Cullman Bros. made its own cigars, and starting in 1906 manufactured cigars for an auxiliary firm, United Cigar Manufacturers Company.  (In 1917 United Cigar Manufacturers Company was renamed General Cigar Co., Inc.)

Joseph F. Cullman additionally dealt in Lower Manhattan real estate by the early 1910s.  On December 25, 1915, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported, "Mr. Cullman recently sold eight buildings, comprising the block front on Burling slip from Pearl to Water street."  The article said he had also just purchased five loft buildings in the same neighborhood to be "remodeled and reconstructed" for rental.  Importantly, it said that Joseph Cullman had recently bought "161-163 Front street, corner of Fletcher, which is about to be improved with a marble building for the occupancy of Cullman Bros."

Cullman had spent $48,000 for the 2,000-square-foot corner property.  A few weeks before the Record & Guide's article, on November 6, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. Cullman will construct for Cullman Bros. a two or three story marble building to be used exclusive for their business."

By the time architect Aymar Embury II filed plans in March 1916, the project had been scaled back.  The plans called for a one-story office building which would cost $20,000 to construct, or about $605,000 in 2026 terms.

The soaring ceiling height of the single-story building made it the equivalent of a two-story structure.  Embury's neo-Federal design smacked more of a bank than office building.  Sitting on a stone water table, the red brick facade was trimmed in marble.  Elegant arched windows were separated by shallow pilasters.  They supported a reeded entablature decorated with urns and blind rondels.  A brick parapet, interrupted by marble balustrades on the Front Street side, sat atop the cornice.

image via the NYC Department of Records and Information Services.

By the World War I years, Joseph Cullman's sons, Howard and Joseph Jr., were highly involved in the business.  They, too, were highly entrepreneurial and civic minded.  On June 7, 1918, for instance, The New York Times reported that Joseph Jr. was organizing the 306th Infantry Auxiliary, and on July 23, 1919, the Tobacco Record announced:

Joseph S. Cullman Jr. of the leaf tobacco firm of Cullman Bros., 161 Front street, is the directing force behind the big drive to win the cooperation of the many business interests in the metropolitan district in making the biggest kind of a success of the Actors' Memorial campaign.

The article noted that Cullman had been "active in a number of drives during the war."

The interior of the Cullman Bros. building was as bank-like inside as out.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1921, Joseph Jr. and Howard spearheaded a movement to clean up the downtown riverfront area.  On June 15, 1921, the New York Herald reported, "A conference to consider the abatement of cinder showers from stacks of a steam manufacturing plant near Burling Slip will be held to-morrow at the offices of Cullman Brothers, 161 Front Street."  That meeting resulted in the Cinder Committee of the Downtown League, headquartered in the Cullman Bros. building.  Three years later, the fight was ongoing.  On January 17, 1924, The New York Times reported that the committee "went on record 'condemning the company's plant.'"  (The offensive plant was operated by the New York Steam Company.)

In the meantime, Joseph Cullman Sr. remained the head of the firm.  He expanded by purchasing land in Connecticut for growing wrapper tobacco.  He and Howard were highly involved in Mount Sinai Hospital.  Joseph sat on its board and was chairman of the committee on medical instruction, and Howard was its president beginning in the early 1920s.

Joseph Cullman Sr. died on August 1, 1938 at the age of 83.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked, "Until two months ago, he had been going regularly to his office at 161 Front Street, home of the wholesale tobacco firm of Cullman Brothers, of which he was board chairman and former president."  Joseph Jr. was president and Howard vice-president of the firm.

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

Ten years earlier, Joseph and Howard organized the Tobacco & Allied Stocks, Inc. a tobacco trust.  By 1938 it controlled Benson & Hedges and in 1954, Joseph and his son, Joseph III, became part of Philip Morris's executive staff through a $22.4 million deal.  Another son, Edgar Meyer Cullman, joined Cullman Bros. in the 1940s.  He was in charge of operating the 600-acre Connecticut tobacco farm and sales.

Cullman Bros. and General Cigar Co., Inc. continued to grow and change.  In 1944, General Cigar introduced the Robert Burns Cigarillo--a panatela cigar that closely resembled a cigarette.

In 1961, Edgar Meyer Cullman purchased General Cigar.  At the time, it was the largest maker of mass produced cigars in the country.  By 1966, the firm had relocated to Midtown.  (Cullman Bros. would eventually become Culbro.)

Aymar Embury II's elegant one-story office building did not survive.  It was razed and the plot was used for a parking lot "for 21 passenger motor vehicles," as described by the Department of Buildings.  In 2015, the 31-story Fairfield Inn & Suites building opened on the site.

image via tripadvisor.com

The Charles S. McVeigh House - 40 East 71st Street

When the Presbyterian Hospital moved north in the mid-1920's its former site became available for development--the entire block between Madison and Park Avenues, and 70th to 71st Street.  It sat among the epicenter of Manhattan wealth and society.

Developer Alfred Rheinstein obtained a substantial chunk of midblock property which contained a total of seven plots on 70th and 71st Streets.  He chose architect Aymar Embury II to design his own house, at No. 44; and then urged his six buyers to go with the same architect to maintain continuity.  Five agreed including Charles Senff McVeigh who purchased the plot next door to Rheinstein's at No. 40.

In reporting on McVeigh's purchase of the plot, on April 30, 1928 The New York Times explained Alfred Rheinstein's vision of a Sutton Place-type enclave.  "These houses will be restricted to five stories and have been so planned that they will surround a garden about 7,000 feet in area.  All the sites in this development have been sold to prominent New York families."

Indeed, the houses were being handled as a project.  On a single day, August 1, 1928, Aymar Embury II filed plans for four of the residences.  Included was the McVeigh house with construction costs set at $75,000; just over $1 million today.

Like its neighbors and completed the following year, the house was faced in red brick and trimmed in marble.  The doorway was flanked by fluted pilasters which supported a swag-carved entablature.   Blind balustrades front the trio of French windows at the second floor.  Between the fourth and fifth floors were three delicately-carved marble panels.  A brick parapet perforated by stone balustrades crowned the simple cornice.

The Alfred Rheinstein house is to the left of the newly-completed McVeigh residence  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Charles S. McVeigh was a partner in the law firm of Morris & McVeigh and the chairman of the board of the Fulton Trust Company.  He and his wife, the former Alice Antille Bacon, had three children, Charles, Jr., Walter and Newton.

Certain of the interiors closely followed the 18th century motif of the architecture.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Not having a daughter of her own did not completely prevent Alice from getting involved in the exciting debutante seasons, at least in 1932-33.  In December 1932 the New York Evening Post commented, "The second Junior Assembly on January 5, is to be the excuse for several exclusive dinner parties this season.  Added to the number is one Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh of 40 east Seventy-first street will give for Miss Elizabeth Corson Ellis, the debutante daughter of Mr. and Mrs. john MacEwan Ellis of Rumson, N. J."

Other areas of the house like the dining room (above) and entrance hall were decidedly influenced by the current Art Deco style.  photos by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

McVeigh was an avid outdoor sportsman.  He co-founded the American Wild Life Institute in 1935 and was its first vice president.  He was, as well, a trustee of the Ducks Unlimited Foundation.  

The family's country residence was Knollwood, a 270-acre estate near East Northwich, Long Island.  McVeigh had inherited the 60-room mansion and grounds from his aunt, Gustavia A. Senff, in 1927.  

The McVeigh family's summer home, Knollwood, was designed by Hiss & Weekes in 1906.  photo Architecture Magazine, 1911 (copyright expired)

As the McVeigh boys married and left, Charles and Alice seem to have downsized.  Around 1950 they moved to a large apartment at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 76th Street.  A story in The New York Times in September 1951 said that McVeigh had sold Knollwood to Gustav S. Zog I of Albania, and that the former king had paid "with a bucket of diamonds and rubies."  

No. 40 East 71st Street became home to Murray M. Salzberg.  A renovation completed in 1951 resulted in a garage carved into the ground floor--a decision that neither Aymar Embury, Charles McVeigh nor Alfred Rheinstein would have embraced.

The son of Russian immigrants, Salzberg was the owner of two Queens bus companies as well as the Des Moines and Southern Railroad, the Johnsbury County Railroad in Arkansas, the Arkansas and Ozark Railroad and other short-line railroads in Maine, Kansas Arkansas, and upstate New York.  He helped to develop the Salzberg Transportation Institute at his alma mater, Syracuse University.

The Salzberg residency would be relatively short-lived.  On June 12, 1959 The New York Times reported that he had sold the house to the Government of Tunisia for use as its mission to the United Nations.  Interior alterations were completed for the mission in 1962.  When the mission later moved to Beekman Place the McVeigh house returned to a single-family home.

photograph by the author

The James Gordon Bennett Memorial - Herald Square

photo by Jim Henderson

The New York Herald was founded by James Gordon Bennett, Sr. in 1835.  Under his leadership it was the dominant newspaper in the city for most of the century.  Shortly after his death in 1866 James Gordon Bennet, Jr., who was raised in Paris, returned to New York to take the reins.

The junior Bennett brought with him the carefree lifestyle he had enjoyed in France, and his unorthodox behavior sometimes offended well-bred Victorian New Yorkers.  Such was the case in 1877 when he attended the New Year's Day party hosted by his fiancée's parents.  His engagement came to an abrupt end when he urinated in the fireplace.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

In 1893 Bennett engaged the services of McKim, Mead & White to design a new printing plant and headquarters for The Herald far north of Printing House Square on the trapezoid-shaped plot of land facing West 35th Street, bounded by 6th Avenue and Broadway.   Completed in 1895 it was nothing short of a masterwork.

Sanford White based the design on the 1476 Palazzo del Consiglio in Verona, Italy.  But there was obvious influence from the publisher.  James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was obsessed with owls, which he made the symbol of The Herald.  Now 26 four-foot high bronze owls now perched along the cornice of the building.  Those at the corners, with spread wings, had illuminated green glass eyes which glowed eerily on and off with the striking of the two clocks embedded into the facade--one symbolic of Wisdom, the other of Industry.

The massive grouping dominated the roof line.  The two clock faces flank the central second story windows and bronze owls stand guard all along the cornice.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The striking of that clock seemed to be accomplished by two massive figures in printers' aprons under the watchful eye of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, whose traditional attendant was an owl.  The massive bronze grouping was executed by French sculptor Antonin Jean Carlès, personally chosen by Bennett.  On the hour and the half-hour, the mechanized typesetters were set into action, swinging mallets against a large bronze bell atop which perched yet another owl.

At noon on March 21, 1895 the clock was first set into action.  The Editor & Publisher wrote that "thousands of persons cluttered up the neighborhood and gazed at the two figures."

The mechanical typesetters--given the names Guff and Stuff by New Yorkers--clanged out the hours for nearly three decades--during rain, snow and summer heat--as busy pedestrians scurried by below.   The colorful James Gordon Bennett, Jr. died in 1918 and three years later, on May 12, 1921 the New-York Tribune ran the headline: Old Herald Building Soon to Come Down.  It added "The heroic bronze smiths, known as Guff and Stuff, who had been striking out the hours night and day on the big bell on top of the southern façade of the building for the last twenty-eight years, and the goggling owls that had watched from their lofty perch on top of the building during those years were removed last month, for they were the property of the late Mr. Bennett." 

One calculation put the total number of mallet thumps by Guff and Stuff at 3,188,680.

Thankfully for posterity, Bennett's unnatural love for owls had prompted him to retain personal ownership of the bronzes as well as the sculptural clock grouping.  All of the statuary was carefully crated and stored.

Nearly two decades later a committee of businessmen in the Herald Square area was formed to erect a memorial to Bennett.  The men raised $10,000 (just under $180,000 today) and the well-known architect Aymar Embury II received the commission to design the structure.

As ground was broken on July 3, 1940 The New York Times reported "The proposed new forty-foot granite monument of modified Italian Renaissance design, with its double-faced clock and the two bronze owls, will serve as a background and base for the bronze group...The statue and bell will face south in front of a niche flanked by Corinthian pilasters, the upper part of which contains the clock and two of the owls of which the younger Bennett was so fond."

photo by the author

Although the monument included a lengthy inscription about Bennett and his contributions, The Times essentially ignored him when it reported on the unveiling on November 19 that year.  The newspaper referred to it as "Minerva and the Bell-ringers."  The article ended saying "The ceremonies will end at 6 P. M. with the striking of the clock, the ringing of the bells by 'Stuff' and 'Guff,' and the eyes of the owls blinking again for the first time in twenty years."

The spread-winged owls with their blinking green eyes were salvaged from the Herald Building's corners.  Both clock faces from the Herald facade survived, now back-to-back atop the monument.  photo by the author

The clock and its figures got a make-over in 1989 when Stuff began moving forward and actually making contact with the bell with his mallet, causing damage.  The clock, the granite and the figures were cleaned and conserved and, $200,000 later, emerged looking as they did in 1940.  Others of the reclaimed bronze owls perch on posts around the triangular park.

photo by the author

The Richard F. Hoyt House - 44 East 71st Street

The angled ground floor bay to the left is actually a cleverly-disguised garage door.

The Presbyterian Hospital engulfed the block between Madison and Park Avenues, and 70th to 71st Street until moving far uptown in the mid-1920's.  Suddenly valuable real estate was available.  Developer Alfred Rheinstein obtained a large midblock parcel extending from 70th to 71st containing seven building plots.  He chose architect Aymar Embury II to design his own house, at No. 44; and then convinced five of his buyers to go with the same architect in order to achieve continuity.  And he went a step further.  He wrote restrictions into the deeds to preserve one common park-like backyard for the use of all the homeowners--a similar plan to what had previously been done on Sutton Place.

Among his buyers was Richard Farnsworth Hoyt and his wife, the former Katharine Stone, who purchased the plot next door to Rheinstein at No. 44.   Construction on their 34-foot wide residence began in 1928 and was completed the following year.

Embury produced a five-story neo-Georgian mansion that melded into the enclave.  The marble base with its stately arched entrance surmounted by a swan's neck pediment supported four stories of ruddy red brick trimmed in marble.  A complex iron balcony stretched the width of the second floor.  A parapet broken by blind panels hid the roof garden from view.

The Hoyt residence fit in harmoniously with its Embury-designed neighbors. photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

To house Hoyt's vehicles, Embury installed a three-car garage within the ground floor.  It was cleverly disguised by a folding door that matched the angled bay window on the opposite side of the entrance.  Unless the door was opened, no passerby would ever suppose that was anything other than a window.

The curb cut gives away the secret of the covert garage entrance.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

When The New York Sun reported that the Hoyts had sold their former home at No. 32 East 67th Street "to Lady Laura Anne Allom and daughters of Totteridge, Herts, England," it added "Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt now reside at 44 East seventy-first street, which is one of the notable group of private houses that now occupy the site of the old Presbyterian Hospital."

Wealthy, adventurous and handsome, Hoyt was born on July 3, 1888 in Revere, Massachusetts.  He was a partner in the brokerage firm of his father-in-law, Hayden, Stone & Co., and a director in more scores of others.  The Hoyt summer estate, the Anchorage, was at Marion, Massachusetts, on Buzzard's Bay.  He and Katharine had four children, Eleanor, Virginia, Constance and Galen Stone Hoyt.

At the country house Hoyt let loose his passions--automobiles, airplanes and motor boats.  Following World War I, when he had been stationed at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio working on war aircraft and motor development, he became a director in the Wright Aeronautical Corporation.  He played an active part in developing powerful engines for airplanes and boats.  On August 16, 1929 The New York Times reported he had been elected chairman of the board of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

Hoyt's study was decidedly masculine with pine paneling, leather chairs and a hunting scene painting.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

His interest went further than merely an engineering or administrative point of view.  On July 20, 1928 The New York Times reported "Delivery of an amphibian plane with a Wright Cyclone engine and luxurious cabin accommodations to Richard F. Hoyt, broker and speedboat fan was announced yesterday...Mr. Hoyt plans to use the plane to commute between New York and a Summer home at Marion, Mass."

18th century furniture like the handsome highboy and the Chippendale ladder back chairs in the master bedroom carried on the architectural motif. photos by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

And, indeed, a month later, on August 20, Aeronautics wrote that between Manhattan and Massachusetts "Richard F. Hoyt commutes at 100 miles an hour.  He...sits lazily in a cabin finished in dark brown broadcloth and saddle leather, with built-in lockers containing pigskin picnic cases."  At times, said the article, Hoyt took the controls himself.

He was an avid motorboat racer and in 1929 set a speedboat record in the annual President's Cup Regatta.  He was invited to the White House where President Herbert Hoover presented him with a massive trophy cup on the lawn.

President Hoover presented Hoyt with the President's Cup on the White House lawn on October 10, 1929.  Daughter Eleanor is directly behind the President.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Katharine was athletic as well.  Her favorite sport was tennis and in 1931 she and six other socialites founded the Court House.   Their husbands funded the building of the $1 million clubhouse on East 65th Street which, according to Popular Photography magazine in January 1947, housed "the biggest indoor tennis court in New York, a swimming pool, squash courts, and a tremendous double-storied, wood-paneled sumptuously furnished reception room."

The Court House proved the perfect venue for Eleanor's debutante ball on December 27, 1930.  On the day of the party the New York Evening Post was frustratingly teasing in saying "several unique features are planned for the dance Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Hoyt of 44 East Seventy-first Street are giving tonight to introduce their daughter, Miss Eleanor Hoyt, at the Court House."

Eleanor, educated at the exclusive Miss Chapin's School, had grown up in the privileged surroundings of other debutantes.  But unlike most others, she had the adventurous spirit of her father.  She could fly an airplane, for instance.  And it may have been that connection that had sparked a connection between A. Felix du Pont and her a few evenings prior to the Court House ball.

Du Pont was a son of the vice-president of E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co.  He was a guest at a dinner-dance for Eleanor where they met.   He was also a flyer.

Just two months after her coming-out, Eleanor's parents announced her engagement to du Pont.  The couple was married at The Anchorage on August 28, 1931.  The New York Evening Post remarked, "the wedding will climax a romance of flying fields.  Miss Hoyt is the only girl except Mrs Lindbergh to have piloted Colonel Charles a. Lindbergh.  Mr. du Pont was formerly as employed at the airport of the Ludington air lines in Washington."

The wedding came at an awkward time within the family.  Katharine had obtained a divorce from Richard that spring.  On June 22 Martha Nicholson Doubleday divorced her publisher husband, Nelson Doubleday in Reno.   Seven days later she and Richard F. Hoyt were married.

In the divorce Katharine received both the East 71st Street mansion and The Anchorage.  Richard and his new wife moved into No. 206 East 65th Street.  

Two views of Katharine's pretty boudoir with its hand-painted wallpaper and paneled fireplace wall. photos by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Katherine continued her social routine with no apparent bumps in the road.  She was visited by the New York Sun's "Garden Scout" in the spring of 1933.  The anonymous columnist informed readers "Mrs. K. Stone Hoyt's garden at 44 East Seventy-first street is entirely bordered with the most flourishing and richly green rhododendrons.  On this garden the pool was at the back and the borders held in by a low marble curb."

Virginia's coming-out would take place that winter season.  Known popularly as Ginny, her December 29 debut was as impressive as her sister's had been.  The New York Evening Post reported that before the ball, Katharine would host a dinner in the 71st Street house for "about one hundred" and "several hundred additional guests will attend the dance."  The writer expected the event to be "one of the smartest and most interesting of the debutante parties of the season."

Like Eleanor's, it was held at the Court House, described by the Post as "that most exclusive of city clubs."  The article noted "It is a rule of the club that when any one of the members is entertaining the entire house will be turned over to him and his guests, and since there are but seven, one for each day of the week, there is not likely to be any conflict among them."

Despite his earlier infidelity, Richard Hoyt and his former wife seem to have enjoyed an amiable relationship.  So much so that following his death on March 7, 1935, Katharine received $1.5 million from his estate--more than 20 times that much in today's dollars.

Katharine was at The Anchorage in July the following year when she unexpectedly died.  She was 45-years old.

No. 44 was purchased by David Sarnoff, businessman and American radio and television pioneer.   He was the founder and head of the Radio Corporation of America, known today as RCA.  He and his wife, the former Lizette Hemant had three sons, Robert, Edward and Thomas.

The garage door is slightly opened in this shot.  photo by Chang W. Lee, The New York Times December 20, 2012

The Sarnoffs were married on July 4, 1917.  Theirs was a touching love story.  Lizette's family had just arrived in the Bronx from France and were neighbors of David, his widowed mother, and brothers and sisters.  Years later The New York Times said "At that time she spoke little English, but recalled later that Mr. Sarnoff, who spoke no French, learned just enough from her to make his proposal in French."

The onset of World War II immensely affected the Sarnoff household.  David was appointed to General Dwight D. Eisenhower's communications staff and sons Robert and Edward joined the Navy and Army respectively.

Many engagements and marriages were fast-tracked by the possibility of deployment and such was the case with Robert.  A graduated of Philips Academy in Andover and Harvard University, he was attending the Naval Officers Training School in Washington, D.C. when, on March 25, 1942, the New York Sun reported that he had been married to Esme O'Brien in a civil service ceremony.  Only the couple's parents were there.

Before long both Robert and Edward were serving in the South Pacific.  Robert was by now a lieutenant and he was sent to an Army communications installation in Guadalcanal in April 1944 in relation to his Navy job.  When he bumped into a soldier in leaving the Quonset hut office and turned to apologize, he stood face-to-face with his brother.

Both, it turns out, were following closely in their father's footsteps.  The New York Sun wrote, on April 5, "more surprising, they learned that each was working on the same project--the development of regular broadcasts and radio news-copy transmission to the States--from different angles.  Robert is "more interested in the administrative end'--the arrangements for setting up field stations here and on other islands.  Edward, a Brown University-trained electrical engineer, helps to construct and maintain stations."

Their father was busy in the meantime.  He expanded radio circuits for NBC to transmit news from the invasion of France three months later, reestablished Radio France after its Paris station was bombed, and headed the construction of a powerful radio transmitter that could reach all European allied forces--Radio Free Europe.   His war work earned him the Legion of Merit in 1944 and the rank of Brigadier General in 1945.

Sarnoff was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1951.

Back home Lizette worked for the Red Cross and for the Free French cause.  For her efforts she was awarded the medal of honor of the French Women's Army.

Among Lizette's other worthy causes was, most notably, the New York Infirmary in which she first became actively involved in 1939.  She was hands-on, starting out as a nurse's aide.  She was as well a member of the executive committee of the United Hospital Fund.

Upon David Sarnoff's death on December 12, 1971 newspapers nationwide ran full page obituaries and printed tributes from the highest ranking men in politics, industry and communications.  His sizable estate was left, mostly, to Lizette.

Although she retained possession of No. 44 East 71st Street, Lizette moved to No. 1 Sutton Place where she died on January 9, 1974 at the age of 79.

The Sarnoff estate sold the house in the fall of 1977 to jeweler Jacques Mazard for $1.45 million.  In reporting the sale The New York Times remarked on the indoor swimming pool.

The mansion was sold again fifteen years later in what The New York Times called "the largest sale in 1992."  The Republic of Korean  spent $10.8 million on the house for its Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations.  The Mission remains in the house today.  Although most of the interiors have been preserved, expected alterations for offices and meetings rooms have been made.

photograph by the author

The Tallulah Bankhead House - 230 East 62nd St

Home construction had ground to a near halt during the Civil War years.   But in 1868 brothers John and George Ruddell were making up for lost time.  For the next few years the builders, who operated under the firm name J. & G. Ruddell, would be busy buying up building lots on the Upper East Side and erecting rowhouses.

Between 1868 and 1870 they line the south side of the 62nd Street block, between Second and Third Avenue with 19 similar homes.  Rather surprisingly, they used two architects--F. S. Barns designing nine of them, and James W. Pirrson responsible for two groups of five.

Born in New York City, Pirrson was working on his own in 1868 when he started work on Nos. 222 through 230.  About a year and a half later he would partner with Philip Gengembre Hubert to form Hubert, Pirrson & Co.

Although generally the neighborhood east of Park Avenue was, at the time, considered the "wrong" side, Pirrson's completed homes were handsome and comfortable.   At 20 feet wide and costing about $15,000 each to build (a little over a quarter of a million dollars today), they were intended for upper middle class owners.

Like scores of rowhouses appearing throughout the city, the residences were faced in brownstone and included high stoops.  Architrave openings with projecting lintels, arched double-doored entrances beneath showy peaked pediments, and bracketed and paneled cornices made the houses up-to-date if not uncommon.

No. 230 became home to William F. Croft who, too, got into the building boom.  Bradstreet's (the forerunner of Dun & Bradstreet) reported that he began business "in 1877 with very little capital."  Focusing on the rapidly-developing Yorkville neighborhood, he quickly made money.

While the Crofts did not rub shoulders with the millionaires who summered in Newport and Bar Harbor, they joined other well-to-do families in the fashionable resort hotels of Long Beach, New Jersey.

Somewhat astonishingly it was the assassination of President James A. Garfield on July 2, 1881 that brought Croft's finances crashing down.   On August 2 that year The New York Times reported that the builder's bankruptcy "was a surprise to the trade, as he was regarded as doing a flourishing business."   He was currently constructing an apartment building on Seventh Avenue at 57th Street, costing more than $200,000, along with other structures on Madison Avenue.

But, explained the article, he had invested heavily in elevated railroad stocks.  "He held a considerable line of stocks on margin, and when the tumble followed the shooting of the President his brokers sold him out, it is claimed, without notice."  He incurred losses of $75,000--nearly $1.8 million today.

Croft moved his family to No. 555 West 128th Street before 1888.  But his problems seem to have followed him.   In the early morning hours of April 4, 1888 he was arrested for "smashing a window in Philip Milligan's saloon."  The Evening World explained, "He wanted to get in after the place was closed."

At the time of the window smashing, merchant Robert Gordon was living at No. 230 East 62nd Street.  The well-respected businessman owned his own building on Cedar Street and was one of the founders of the esteemed Down Town Association.

In 1895 brothers Ferdinand and Hermann Carri purchased the house and converted it to The New York Institute for Violin Playing and School for Piano and Vocal Culture.  Both men were composers and accomplished musicians.  Large audiences assembled for their concerts in venues like Mendelssohn Hall and Chickering Hall.  Ferdinand played violin and Hermann the piano.

The Institute would remain in the house for decades.  Following the annual recital in April 1907 the music critic from the New-York Tribune opined "The violin students of Ferdinand Carri...showed some fine results of training in a violin recital held at Mendelssohn Hall last Wednesday evening."

New-York Tribune, September 7, 1907

The Carri brothers ran the Institute here until January 1920. Assessed at $11,500, the value of the outmoded Victorian building had dropped to about $136,000 in today's dollars.  Architect Aymar Embury II would change that.

Embury removed the stoop and moved the entrance to a few steps below street level.  The stone window details were shaved flat, slightly projecting bandcourses defined each level, and a parapet with blind panels of balustrades replaced the outdated cornice.

The painted stucco, tiny bas relief urns, pinwheel roundels and false balustrades gave the house a Regency flair.

Embury married Ruth Dean in 1923.  A renowned landscape architect, she was best known for designing the gardens of lavish country homes.  Her wealthy clients included Vincent Astor, Howard Cullman and Arthur Lehman.  She was responsible for the grounds at the famous Grey Gardens estate in East Hampton.

Her husband enjoyed a similar clientele, designing the country estates of millionaires like James Boyd's Weymouth, at Southern Pines, North Carolina.   The couple had a daughter, Judith, in 1927.  Their own summer home was in East Hampton.

On May 26, 1932 Ruth died suddenly in the house at the age of 43.  Her funeral was held in East Hampton.  For several years Embury would not return to East 62nd Street.

He leased the furnished house to former United States Attorney Emory R. Buckner in October that year.  A year later the Buckners, who were at their summer home in Nantucket, announced the engagement of daughter Betty to Potter Cox.

Following the Buckers, Alexandra Ewing Noyes moved into the house in 1934 with her three sons.  She was divorced from Newbold Noyes, son of the president of The Associated Press early that year.  Alexandra's grandfather, Thomas Ewing, was Secretary of the Interior under Zachary Taylor and Secretary of the Treasury under William Henry Harrison.  Her father, also named Thomas Ewing, had served as Commissioner of Patents during the administration of Woodrow Wilson.

On December 8, 1934, Alexandra married her brother-in-law, Thomas A. Stone.  Stone had been married to her older sister, who died in childbirth a year later.

Another marriage took place that year.  Aymar Embury married Josephine Bound on September 17.  Following their honeymoon to Spain, they moved into No. 230 East 62nd Street.  Along with his domestic life, Embury's professional life changed upon their return.  The newly-appointed Parks Commissioner Robert Moses chose him as the chief or consulting architect in the many civic projects Moses initiated.


Josephine Embury lavished her attention on the rear gardens.  Every year, beginning around 1938, she opened her "ivy garden" for the City Garden Tour.  It would be a regular stop until 1943.

The Emburys remained in the house until 1955 when, in late November, they sold it to internationally famed stage and motion picture actress Tallulah Bankhead.   She was equally well-known for her biting wit, gravelly voice and somewhat shocking lifestyle.   Author Richard Alleman in his 1988 New York Movie Lover's Guide summed it up saying "She drank heavily, smoked six packs of cigarettes a day, went to bed with both men and women, was renowned for her bawdy stories, and yet, throughout it all, Tallulah Bank head was one great lady."

The following year Bankhead appeared on stage as Blanche DuBois in a revival of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.  Williams remarked that after a performance "when the play was finished I rushed up to her and fell to my knees at her feet."

But the actress was suffering from serious addictions at the time.   One of her most memorable television appearances was on the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Comedy Hour in 1957 in which she played herself in the episode "The Celebrity Next Door."  Reportedly both Ball and Arnaz were exasperated by her appearing on set seemingly drunk and delaying rehearsals.

A scene from "The Celebrity Next Door."  via papermoonloveslucy

An article in The New York Times on July 24, 1958 reflected a pattern of accidents happening in the 62nd Street house.  "Tallulah Bankhead, an actress, was slightly injured last night in a fall [in her house].  Miss Bankhead tripped and broke a vase.  She fell and cut her left forearm on one of the fragments.  Her doctor took five stitches in her forearm."

Bankhead sold No. 230 on December 29, 1961 to George Huntington Hartford, heir to the A & P supermarket fortune.   She moved to No. 447 East 57th Street and died in St. Luke's Hospital on December 12, 1968 at the age of 66.  Supposedly, her last understandable words were "codeine...bourbon."

Hartfort paid cash for the house.  In reporting on the sale The New York Times noted "it contains twelve rooms, including three bedrooms, three bathrooms and three servants' rooms."   It was only one of his several residences, including a Melody Farm, a 160-acre estate in Mahwah, New Jersey; a Hollywood estate, The Pines; a townhouse in London; a home in France and another on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

His most lasting legacy would be his art extensive art collection, which became so large that he commissioned architect Edward Durell Stone to design the Gallery of Modern Art at No. 2 Columbus Circle to house it.  The museum opened in 1964.  Included in the collection were works by Salvador Dali, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Manet, and Degas.

Other than the removed stoops, the neighboring houses retain their 1868 appearance.

Hartford died in 2008.  No. 230 East 62nd Street remains a single-family home today.   It recently underwent a facade restoration and is little changed since Aymar Embury II gave it a remarkable facelift in the 1920s.

photographs by the author

The Arthur S. Lehman Mansion - 45 East 70th St

Arthur S. Lehman's father, Mayer, had arrived in Alabama in 1850 to join his brothers, Henry and Emanuel, who had already established a dry good business there.  The German Jewish 20-year old in no way fit the stereotype of the bedraggled immigrant.   With his arrival, the brothers renamed their company Lehman Brothers.

Possibly through Arthur's influence, the firm branched out into cotton factoring.  The Lehmans accepted bales of cotton in exchange for merchandise.  Eventually, cotton trading would be their main industry.  Mayer became a true Southerner, supporting the Confederate cause and even owning seven slaves according to the 1860 U.S. Census.

Two years after the end of war, he and his brother Emanuel (Henry died of yellow fever in 1855) moved the firm to New York City.   Mayer was a founder and director of the New York Cotton Exchange.

Mayer and his wife, the former Babetta Newgrass, had eight children.  Arthur was born on June 1, 1873.  By the time of his father's death in 1897 Lehman Brothers had become one of the most important investment banking firms in the country.   Unlike his brothers Arthur joined the firm, eventually becoming a senior member.

He married the 19-year old Adele Lewisohn, daughter of millionaire banker and mining magnate Adolph Lewisohn, in 1901.  Adele was cultured and educated, having attended the Anne Brown School and Barnard College.  Although characterized by The New York Times later as "a shy, reserved woman," she was progressive for an Edwardian socialite.  When her translation of Rudolph Herzog's The Story of Helga from German to English was published in 1913, she used her maiden name.  And unlike other moneyed wives, content with polite teas and drawing room visits, she played championship tennis and was an accomplished golfer.

Arthur and Adele had three daughters and lived in the Fifth Avenue mansion district at No. 31 West 56th Street.  But by the 1920s the neighborhood had become sorely commercialized. 

In 1925 the Presbyterian Hospital which engulfed the block from Madison to Park Avenue, between 70th and 71st Street, prepared to relocate far uptown.  The valuable Lenox Hill property was put on the market. 

The Hospital left the block in 1928.  Developer Alfred Rheinstein had purchased several of the lots.  He built homes on seven, and sold one plot to Arthur S. Lewisohn.  Like the innovate Sutton Place arrangement conceived a few years earlier, the houses would share a common rear garden.

The Lewisohns commissioned Aymar Embury II to design their new mansion and construction began that same year.  Completed in 1929, the 43-foot wide stone-faced residence was at once severe and elegant.  Five stories tall, its neo-French Classic facade was sparsely decorated with delicate urns and similar neo-Classical elements.  The center opening at the second floor, above a graceful iron pseudo-balcony, was ornamented with exquisite, understated carved draping.  The rooftop parapet was broken by balustrades above each opening.

Neo-Classical details include miniature metal valances in the windows.  The surface of the stone has been sadly mutilated by sandblasting.

For decades the mansion would be the scene of charity affairs.  Both Arthur and Adele were active in philanthropies.  He was a founder and president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies; and she was highly involved in the Service for the Orthopedically Handicapped.  Adele's entertainments most often had to do with that institution or the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.

On November 19, 1934, for instance, she hosted an afternoon reception for the workers in a fund raising drive for the Federation.  The women heard Dr. Sigismund S. Goldwater, Commissioner of Hospitals, speak.  The "principal guest" was French stage star and singer Lucienne Boyer.

The couple maintained a summer estate, Ridgeleigh, in Purchase, New York.  Their daughter Frances and her husband, wealthy broker John Loeb, also had a home there. 

In April 1934 Frances stayed in her parents' 70th Street house for a few days while they were in California.  On April 2 she came home from a social engagement.  The Great Depression had little effect on the Loeb or Lehman families--a fact evidenced in the jewelry she removed and placed on the dressing table that night--"several diamond bracelets, a pearl necklace and a diamond bow-knot brooch."

The next morning a maid noticed the jewelry and placed it in a drawer in the dressing table.  The following evening Frances was nearly finished dressing for the theater when she opened the drawer.  The jewelry was gone.

Closer inspection revealed that other items were missing.  In all Frances reported that the thief had made off with a pearl and sapphire necklace, a diamond and platinum ring, an Oriental pearl necklace, a diamond wrist watch, two diamond and sapphire bracelets, a diamond and emerald bracelet and the diamond bow-knot brooch.   She estimated their value at between $20-35,000; more in the neighborhood of $600,000 today.

Police inspected the bedroom windows, which showed no indication of having been forced and there were no marks on the bedroom door which might show it had been jimmied.  The five servants were interrogated, but, according to The New York Times, "could not provide any clues."

As was common, the Lehmans and their millionaire neighbors had hired outside security to patrol the block.  Peter Baronossky was making his rounds a week later, on April 11, jiggling doorknobs to make sure they were locked.  When he tried the Lehman door, it opened.

He entered the vestibule to see if the inner door was locked and noticed a carefully-wrapped tissue paper package lying in a corner.  When he nudged it with the toe of his shoe, a diamond bracelet fell out.  The Lehmans were still out of town; but he woke the servants and notified the police.

All of Frances Loeb's missing jewelry was in the package.  Once again the servants were questioned.  Although it would seem that the theft was an inside job and a nervous servant had placed the package there, the culprit was never found.

Arthur Lehman developed a blood clot in his leg in May 1936.  It broke loose and traveled to his lungs, resulting in a fatal pulmonary embolism.  He died suddenly on May 16 in the 70th Street mansion at the age of 63.  His funeral was held at Temple Emanu-El the following day.  Lehman was at the time a trustee of the New School for Social Research, the Museum of the City of New York, the City Housing Corpration, and of the Andrew Feedman Home, a retirement home for wealthy New Yorkers who had lost their fortunes.

Adele continued with her intense charitable and social work.  On March 16, 1938 she entertained committee members of the Joint Home-Finding Committee for Jewish Foster Children.  In addressing the group, she said "The magnitude of the problem can perhaps best be understood if I mention that 2,900 children are living in foster homes today through the work of our agencies, but that almost twice as many applications of potential foster mothers were studied to find the happiest combinations of mother and children."

In the 1940s she was active in the League of Women Voters, serving as its vice president in 1945; she was elected to the board of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society in 1947, and founded the Arthur Lehman Counseling Service in 1954.  In 1957 she donated the funds to build Adele Lehman Hall at Barnard College.  She died in the Ridgeleigh estate of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 11, 1965 at the age of 83.

The Lehman mansion was put on the market for $600,000.  It was sold in an all-cash deal in February, 1966 for $500,00.  The new owners were cosmetics tycoon Joseph Lauder and his wife, Estee.

At some point the facade was sandblasted in an ill-advised effort to clean it.  The result was that the stone was severely pitted, sadly diminishing the original, refined appearance.  Otherwise, the Lehman mansion, still a private home, appears unchanged--a 2009 roof addition is invisible from the street.

photographs by the author