The J. Henry Alexandre House - 35 East 67th Street

 

In 1881 developer Daniel Hennessy completed construction of a row of three homes at 33 through 37 East 67th Street between Madison and Park Avenues.  Designed by Thom & Wilson, they were clad in brownstone and featured high stoops above English basements.  The center house became home to Joseph Suydam Stout and his family.

At the age of 17 Joseph S. Stout became a clerk in his father's bank, the Shoe and Leather Bank of New York.  In 1868 he left to become a partner in the Wall Street brokerage firm of W. G. Wiley.  Five years before buying the East 67th Street house he organized the firm of Stout & Co.

Joseph Suydam Stout, image from Prominent and Progressive Americans, 1902 (copyright expired)

Stout had married Julia Frances Purdy on April 21, 1868.  The couple had three sons, Newton E., Andrew Varick, and Joseph Jr.  A fourth, Arthur Purdy, would be born in 1885.  

The family would remain here for decades.  Newton was the first to leave.  He married Jane A. Towle on December 15, 1891.  Andrew, who graduated from Columbia in 1893, was a stock broker at the turn of the century; while Joseph Jr. was an electrical engineer.  Young Arthur was still attending the Pomfret School.  He would receive his medical degree in 1912 and become a respected surgical pathologist.

In 1903 the Stouts sold 35 East 67th Street to James Henry Alexandre (who went professionally by his first initial) and his wife, the former Elizabeth Boyce Lawrence.  The Evening Post Record of Real Estate Sales noted, "Mr. Alexandre will remodel the house for his own occupancy."

And remodel he did.  He hired architect Bradford Lee Gilbert to transform the outmoded house from a Victorian dowager to an Edwardian debutante.  Gilbert stripped off the brownstone facade and stoop, lowered the entrance to the former English basement level below sidewalk level, and gave the house a new French personality.

The Beaux Arts design featured an offset portico supported by squared and rounded columns.  The full-height second floor windows were fronted by a lacy iron railing, echoed in the fourth floor balcony.  A massive dormer, capped by an arched pediment, fronted the slate-shingled mansard.

Elizabeth was J. Henry's second wife.  He and his first wife, Gertrude Jerome, had a son, James Jr.  She died on December 23, 1883.  J. Henry married Elizabeth (known familiarly as Lizzie) in 1898.  They had two sons, Frederick Francis, Clarence Dinsmore, and two daughters, Virginia and Mary Elizabeth.

In April 1903, the same year he purchased the 67th Street house, Alexandre purchased a private carriage house at 173 East 73rd Street.  It was close enough to his residence for convenience, but far enough away that the odors and noises were not offensive.

Alexandre was the retired head of the Alexandre Steamship Company, founded by his father, Frederick Francis Alexandre as Alexandre & Sons.  He was a member of the exclusive New York Yacht and Union League clubs.

The family summered on Staten Island on the estate his father had built.  Here J. Henry Alexandre fulfilled his passion for thoroughbred horses.  The New-York Tribune noted in 1906, "Mr. Alexandre was, before his retirement from business, prominent in steamship circles, but he is better known because of his love for horses."  He was a member of the Richmond County Hunt Club, the Richmond County Country Club, and the Coney Island Jockey Club, of which he was a governor.  He was, as well, a director of the Saratoga Race Trace and vice president of the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association.  

On January 3, 1906, just three years after moving into their remodeled home, Elizabeth at the age of 43.  James Henry Alexandre was now tasked with rearing his younger children alone (albeit with considerable help from staff).  

On January 14, 1910 he hosted "a large dinner at Sherry's followed by a theatre party for his debutante daughter, Miss Virginia Alexandre," reported The New York Times.  The number of guests required hired buses to transport them to the theater, after which they returned to Sherry's for a dance.

Four months later, many in society were possibly shocked when, on May 25, 1910 J. Henry Alexandre married Pauline Onativia-Townsend.  The Washington Post said, "While relatives and a few intimate friends had been aware of their betrothal for some time, it was not generally known, and although not unexpected, as it had been rumored for some months, the news surprises many."

J. Henry Alexandre became ill in 1911 and died at the Staten Island home on July 1, 1912 at the age of 64.  Pauline and the unmarried children, J. Henry Jr., Frederick, Virginia, and Mary Elizabeth remained in the East 67th Street house.  The population increased by one following J. Henry's marriage to Anne Loomis on November 29, 1913.

Frederick was married to Bonnie Saportas on June 10, 1916, the same year that J. Henry announced the engagement of his sister, Mary Elizabeth to N. Edward C. Rutter.  Virginia, by now, had moved to Long Island.  In reporting Mary Elizabeth's engagement, The Sun mentioned, "She is passing the summer with her sister, Miss Virginia Alexandre, at Glen Cove."  

The horse racing tradition continued in the family.  On May 3, 1922 the New-York Tribune pictured Anne Alexandre with J. Henry Alexandre 3d and De Witt Alexandre saying, "This picture was taken as they were crossing the highway from the Turf and Field Club to the Belmont Park Terminal."  (copyright expired)

In 1922 J. Henry and Anne converted the East 67th Street residence to a two family home.  Living in one of the duplex apartments in the early 1940's was Louis John Francke, whose summer home was in Glen Head, Long Island.

In 1948 the house was converted to apartments, one each in the basement and second floor, and two each on the third and fourth floors.  Among the prominent residents were music historian and critic Irving Kolodin and his wife, the former Irma Levy Zeckendorf, here in the 1960's.  Kolodin, best known for his Guide to Recorded Music, wrote program notes for the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

Although they were still designated as apartments, spaces in the house were occupied by two businesses in 1975, the Deitcher Gallery and Books Canada.  In 1887 Vivian Horan opened the Vivian Horan Fine Art gallery on the second floor.  She dealt in 20th century paintings, sculptures and drawings here until relocating in 2008.  From 2010 to about 2019 the Henrique Faria Fine Art gallery operated from the building, and in 2020 the Pretzel Gallery opened.

Much of the 1903 interior details of the Alexandre house have been stripped in favor of the bare walls preferred by art galleries.  Some elements, like mantels and plasterwork, survive in the upper floors.  Unfortunate, large paned replacement windows detract from the Beaux Arts feel of the mansion, but overall its Edwardian dignity survives.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Riding Club - Nos. 9-13 East 58th Street

The striking English facade was added in 1905.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Following the completion of Central Park, riding clubs and academies cropped up nearby.   Among the first was the New-York Riding Club, organized in 1873.  Its elegant club rooms were located in Durland's Riding Academy at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street.  Seven years later a group of members splintered off, creating the Gentlemen's Riding Club, deemed by James Grant Wilson in his 1893 The Memorial History of the City of New York, "a worthy rival."

The Fortnightly Review explained that it "owes its existence to the fact that ladies were dependent for their instruction on the riding schools, which were not always as exclusive as might be desired.  So a great many of the best known men in New York clubbed together and bought property in Fifty-eighth Street, where they put up a club-house at a cost of $60,000."  (The price would be in the neighborhood of $1.5 million today.)


The property, between Fifth and Madison Avenue and stretching through the block to 59th Street, was owned by the Astor family.  The Riding Club's headquarters was as much elegant social club as stables and riding space.  The Fortnightly Review said "It consists of a large ring two hundred feet square, on which an immense general sitting-room looks out through a partition wall of glass; a general dining-room; separate dining-rooms, drawing-rooms, and reading-rooms for ladies and gentlemen, and private dressing-rooms where the ladies can keep their habits and dress at the club.  The stables are very fine and complete in every way."

The Riding Club's founders successfully set out to make theirs the most exclusive in the city.  Membership was limited to 400, "and election to the club is a very difficult matter," said the magazine.  "The club is most particular about the social standing of its members, and also makes a high standard of horsemanship a necessary qualification."  Members paid an initiation fee of $200 and an annual dues of $100.

Although women would not become members, wives, unmarried daughters and children of members were admitted.  Shortly after moving into the new clubhouse the group removed the word "Gentlemen's" from its title.  Fortnightly Review opined "The club has contributed in an incalculable degree towards raising the standard of woman's riding in America."

Wallace's Monthly, in April 1888, wrote "The swellest coteries of lady riders are, of course, the guests of the Riding Club on Fifty-eighth Street" and noted "The ladies, in a great variety of plain colors, flock to the club from morning until evening.  They have their own lockers, dressing-rooms and bath-rooms."  The magazine added that the clubhouse was "distinguished by butlers and stewards in knee breeches, and with their calves so padded that the prince of Wales would feel quite at home with one to wait upon him."

Women wore ankle-length riding habits and rode, of course, side-saddle.  New-York Tribune, July 19, 1896 (copyright expired)

The New York Tribune, on June 7, 1891, described the women's accommodations.  "To begin with, hallboys and liveried footmen guard the double entrances on the Fifty-eighth st. side.  The ladies' parlor and reception room...is a long room, beautifully furnished, with rich carpeting and rugs, and handsomely decorated and ornamented."

The article mentioned the dressing and locker rooms "which are fitted up with an elegance that puts to shame the highest efforts in like rooms of any other club in town," and described the grand dining room on the third floor with its mahogany table that could be extended to more than 70 feet.  There were also areas strictly for men-only--like the billiard room.

Children of members could ride and receive instruction during the day, before 4:00  Harper's Young People, June 3, 1884 (copyright expired)

Not only did the millionaires enjoy luxurious surroundings, so did their horses--many of which, according to National Live Stock Journal in 1888, "are valued at $2,000 each," or around $52,000 today.  An innovative ventilation system removed the "foul air" in the stalls and riding ring; there were clipping rooms, feed rooms, stalls for 300 horses, and a "hospital" on the top floor.

Members enjoyed afternoon "music rides," from 4:30 to 6:00, during which an orchestra played. The New York Times noted on January 18, 1897 "These rides are enjoyed not only by wives and sons and daughters of members, but many of the gentlemen drop in on their way home from business for a refreshing spin around the ring before the dinner hour."

Those not riding could indulge in the afternoon tea, from 5:00 to 6:30.  The New-York Tribune explained on July 19, 1896 "Members and their guests may quaff tea while watching the evolutions of the equestrians, and listening to the orchestra, led by Martin J. Schligg."

When the club signed a renewed 20-year lease in 1896, the its membership  had grown to 500 with names that read like the Social Register.  Among them were John Jacob Astor, William E. Dodge, Elbridge T. Gerry, Elihu Root, James A. Roosevelt, William Rockefeller, Odgen Goelet and C. Oliver Iselin, to name only a few.

The appearance of automobiles did not affect the Riding Club.  The horses here were for sport, not for transportation.  And although the neighborhood immediately surrounding its property was now filled with massive mansions and first class hotels, the club not only stayed put, but updated its club house.

On May 7, 1905 The New York Times reported that a "battalion of workmen [had] piled into the building with axe and saw and hammer and began the work of translating the old familiar environment into memory."  The club had commissioned architect Bradford Lee Gilbert, best known for designing train depots, to renovate the old structure into an even more lavish one.

The newspaper said "the building will be of early Norman design, with all the pointed wall effects, the tessellated balconies and entrances, and bay windows that this type of architect suggests."  Gilbert paid special attention to the color scheme of the facade.  The brick was contrasted with warm yellow caen stone, and the metal elements were given an antique green patina.  The Times said "The combination as seen in the model presents nothing less than a symphony of soft, delightful tones."

The $200,000 renovations were completed in November that same year.  The Riding Club had the appearance of an English manor house.  And the interiors, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, were spectacular.

Among the new features was a "terrace scheme" that spilled down from between the second floor sitting rooms, smoking rooms and library to the ring.  An indoor garden, The Times described it as being "treated in accordance with the utmost art of the landscape gardener, and, merging with the space immediately surrounding the entire ring, which will be treated in old Venetian garden effect."  The newspaper opined that it formed "a picture not to be seen anywhere in this city, if indeed in the world."

Equally dazzling was the third floor with its "immense billiard room and cafe."  There were dressing rooms and baths for the females here, as well.  The fourth floor housed two large dining rooms, "separated by a palm garden, with fountains and statuary."

The ventilation system had been completed overhauled, so that now the air in the stalls and the ring was changed every eight minutes.  The Times noted that "to all practical purposes the riders will exercise in open air."

The building became headquarters for the Red Cross in 1917, following the country's entry into World War I.  The elegant fourth floor, with its fountains and statues, now became a factory of sorts.  The Sun explained on December 30 "the top floor of the Riding Club has been converted into a workroom where surgical dressings will be made.  The facilities of the club are open to members and their Red Cross friends."

A limousine waits outside the Riding Club around 1915.  photo by Byron Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

With peacetime the Riding Club returned to its high-end norm.  On December 20, 1919, for instance, Mrs. Frederic C. Thomas held the debutante reception for her daughter, Mary, here.  And the years-old tradition of indoor polo matches resumed as well.  On January 23, 1921 The New York Herald announced that the West Point cadets, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Cornell would all be participating in polo matches in February.

Abutting the 59th Street side of the Riding Club was the Hotel Savoy, erected in 1892.  Early in 1924 the Boomer-du Pont Properties purchased the leasehold on the hotel.   The group had already purchased the Waldorf-Astoria in 1918 and the Willard Hotel in Washington DC in 1920.  Now it expressed interest in replacing the Savoy with a 33-story hotel estimated to cost $18 million.

On April 18, 1924 it was announced that Vincent Astor had sold the property occupied by the Riding Club for $2 million.  The buyer was Boomer-du Pont Properties.  But the new owners were faced with a problem:  the Riding Club held a long term lease on the land.

For two years things continued as normal.   On January 29, 1926 the annual Riding Club Hound Show was held in the club.  The high-end dog show was a favorite of the fox hunting class.  But pressure mounted.  On November 6 that year The Times reported that the recently formed Savoy-Plaza Realty Corporation "has been eager to purchase the lease held by the Riding Club."  Negotiations for the purchase of the old Durland Riding Academy property on West 66th Street near Central Park, it was rumored, were being held.

A postcard pictured the new hotel.  The site of the Riding Club was directly behind, in this shot, to the right.

When the Riding Club moved out, the real estate operators wasted no time in demolishing the handsome structure, just two decades old.  The new 31-story Savoy-Plaza opened on September 29, 1927.  It survived until 1965 when it was replaced by the full-block International Style General Motors Building.

photo realtytoday

Montparnasse on Skid Row -- No. 222 Bowery

photo by clocktowertenants.com

The Bowery in 1884 was a mixed bag. As the recreation area for Little Germany, it teemed with German beer halls and music halls. There were impressive bank buildings and respectable retail stores during the daylight hours. But it was also home to “disorderly houses” – the polite term for brothels – and saloons. Shady characters and sailors loitered in doorways after nightfall.

In an effort to salvage the souls of young men adrift in this sea of vice, the Y.M.C.A. established the Young Men’s Institute at 222 Bowery. The association was intended to afford "opportunities for physical and mental development, social recreation, and special industrial instruction to young men of moderate means,” as reported by The New York Times.

Designed by Bradford Lee Gilbert, the official architect to the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroads, it was completed in 1884 – a robust red brick Queen Anne style building with terra cotta and granite trims. The Architectural Record and Guide admired it as “spirited and picturesque” while The New York Times called it “an attractive four-story structure, with a front of brick stone, and iron.”

An exuberant date cartouche in terra cotta is framed by a terra cotta pediment - photo by clocktowertenants.com

Visitors entered a large reception room with a large fireplace and built-in “chimney corner seats.” Here were newspapers, writing tables and upholstered chairs and settees. The walls were of no-nonsense plaster with wood trim.

Also on the first floor was the gymnasium “furnished with all the requirements of a good physical training place, including plenty of pulling and rowing weights, dumb bells, Indian clubs, climbing ropes, inclined and horizontal ladders, spring board, striking bag, two horizontal bars, two pair of parallel bars, and several substantial mats to prevent bruises from falls,” according to The Times.

A locker room with tub baths and showers adjoined the gym, as well as two bowling alleys.

The second floor contained the wood-paneled library, outfitted initially with 800 books which the boys were allowed to take home, and a 500-seat auditorium. Above were the classrooms where classes in penmanship, free hand, architectural and mechanical drawing, bookkeeping and “the trades” were taught.

Concerts, lectures and readings were offered in the auditorium and activities (which smack of today’s after-school programs) were organized including a glee club, an orchestra and a debating club.

The facilities were open to young men “of good character” between 17 and 35 years old who could pay the dues. A year’s membership cost $4 and a gymnasium membership was another $3. Classes cost 50 cents per term.

A year after the building opened, fire broke out in the Brush Electric Illuminating Company at 204-210 Elizabeth Street. The grease-soaked floors and supplies of stored paraffin resulted in a major conflagration which threatened the Institute. When the young men realized the danger and began to panic, Superintendent C. H. Sage rallied them into a fire-fighting brigade. By the time they reached the auditorium the lead in the stained glass windows was beginning to melt and the windows, bit by bit, fell apart.

Using “the standing fire extinguishing apparatus”, the boys fought the flames that burst through the destroyed windows, setting fire to the furniture.

When Engine Company No. 9 finally responded, they vented the roof by smashing the stained glass skylight in the dome. When it was over the young men had saved the building, which sustained $22,000 in damages; however the once-beautiful art glass windows and dome were gone.

In January 1889 the Institute had 650 members and a daily attendance of about 280 boys, with another 348 young men attending classes. By now the number of courses offered had increased to include carriage drafting, steam engineering, vocal music, physiology and first aid. A year later 13,065 young men attended the 37 free entertainments.

Taking its cue from the pleasure gardens that attracted the city’s well-to-do, the Institute installed a Roof Garden in the summer of 1891. Furniture was brought up, along with electric lights, and here the young members could escape the insufferable heat for a while. “Members read and play chess, or smoke lying at full length on the skylights,” reported The Times. “It would not be a roof garden if there was not something to drink there, and a large water cooler supplies Adam’s ale of superior quality and in unlimited quantity.”

The first year a piano was hoisted up to the roof garden to supply music to the boys; however after a short time in the weather it was just an empty hull.

Times had changed by the Great Depression years and in 1932 the Bowery was the seedy, last stop for alcoholics, the homeless and others down on their luck. The Y.M.C.A. left the building, which became home to small manufacturers and loft space.

The story of the red brick building should have become uninteresting at this point. But as the Nazis stormed into Paris, Cubist and non-figurative abstract artist Fernand Leger escaped to New York where he took up residence in a part of No. 222 until his return to France in 1945. Before long muralist and abstract painter James Brooks moved in. Then artist Wynn Chamberlain.

In 1959 abstract painter Mark Rothko took over the old gymnasium to work on his murals. That space was passed on to Abstract Expressionist painter Michael Goldberg in 1962.

The Victorian building intended for young men of good character had become a meeting place of the hip generation of poetry, literature and art. On April 24, 1965 The Times said “A vision of Montparnasse replacing Skid Row glimmered Thursday night around 222 Bowery when Wynn Chamberlain, the painter of conventional people unadorned by clothes had 130 friends up (six flights) to hear William Burroughs and Mack Thomas read their own fiction.”

Burroughs moved in. And Gysin, whom New York Magazine called “the artist’s artist among the Beats.” Gysin’s lover, artist and poet John Giorno, lived there as did artist Lynda Benglis. William Burroughs called his apartment “the bunker” and tagged the door buzzer with that name rather than his own.

Others who came and went, visiting the artists and poets, were Allen Ginsberg, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Blondie.

In 1997 Burroughs died and Giorni, who still lives at 222 has preserved “the bunker” exactly as he left it.

The times are changing once again for the Bowery, however. The first floor of No. 222 is home to Green Depot an eco-friendly housewares store. Little by little the apartments are being leased at market rates and the vestiges of the Beat Generation are flaking away.  The red brick building, however, holds an important place in 20th Century art and literary hisory.