Thomas Rae's 1897 Carriage Houses at 161 and 163 East 73rd Street

The block of East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenue became lined with middle-class rowhouses in the 1860's and '70's.  But by the late 1880's millionaires were erecting lavish mansions along Fifth Avenue, just three blocks away. Rapidly they demolished houses and erected private carriage houses, creating what is known as a "stable block."  

Among them was dry goods merchant William H. Tailer, who lived at No. 14 East 72nd Street.  In 1896 he commissioned architect Thomas Rae to design two mirror-image carriage houses at Nos. 161 and 163 East 73rd Street--one (apparently 163) for his own use, the other as an investment.  Completed the following year, the two-story utilitarian structures were especially attractive.  

Rae faced them in unexpected rock-faced brick trimmed with limestone.  While he used undressed stone for the beltcourses, the stone friezes below the first floor cornices were smooth-faced.  Rae blended three popular styles to create his pleasing design--Romanesque Revival (in the arches, chunky bandcourses and rough-faced brick), Renaissance Revival (in the frieze of the cast metal cornice with its floral garlands), and Queen Anne (in the upper floor windows).

Among the charming details the architect included were the heads of horses, straining against their reins, within the lintels of the side entrance doors.  

Two handsomely-carved horses head in opposite directions above the doorway.

While horses and the several vehicles were stabled on the first floor and in the basement, the second floor contained contained living quarters for employees like the coachman and his family, and a groom.  

William H. Tailer was a partner in E. N. & W. M. Tailer & Co.  A member of the exclusive Union and Metropolitan Clubs and the St. Nicholas Society, he and his wife maintained a summer estate, "Quarry Hill," at Irvington-on-the-Hudson.  He died at Lenox, Massachusetts on July 15, 1905 at the age of 62.

The following year, in March, his estate sold No. 163 to James McLean, a vice-president with Phelps, Dodge & Co.   His recently completed mansion was nearby at No. 7 East 75th Street.  Like many of his moneyed peers, McLean was interested in horses--but not so much the type housed on East 75th Street.  His thoroughbreds routinely appeared at the fashionable New York Horse Show.

Before long, however, Mclean was leasing both his mansion and his carriage house.  The stable was rented to Jay Gould, grandson of the famous railroad tycoon and banker.  His father, George J. Gould, owned the carriage house steps away at No. 169.

One stable separated the two Gould carriage houses.  George Gould's stable is at the right; his son's is second from left.  photo by Alice Lum

In the meantime, Edward S. Harkness began construction on his marble palace at No. 1 East 75th Street in 1907.   That same year he purchased No. 161 East 73rd Street from the Tailer estate.   While the mansion, designed by James Gamble Rogers, was rising, Harkness put the architect to work on renovations to the carriage house.

The amenities the millionaire and his architect installed were, no doubt, were unique along the block.  The second floor was converted to a squash court, a locker room and a chauffeur's apartment.

As horses gave way to automobiles, many of the 73rd Street stables saw change.  They were converted to garages and some contained rental apartments on the second floor.  Such was the case with the Gould stable.  Artist Marius Vos lived above Gould's limousines in No. 163 by 1921.  Born in Brussels, his sculpture The Birth of a Nation was exhibited in the 1937 Paris Exhibition.

On September 9, 1934 Jay Gould's daughter, Anne, received the first of a series of telephone calls from a waiter who styled himself as Emir Mohamed Al-Raschid II.  The amateur playwright asked her to appear in his play, The Moon of Iraq.  Her refusal resulted in telephonic stalking.  But it got serious when newspapers reported where Anne was hospitalized during a brief illness.  Her stalker appeared at her bedside.

And so it is not surprising that when she had him arrested later, she was careful not to reveal her home address.  The New York Times reported on September 24, 1934, that she "gave her address as 163 East Seventy-third Street--her father's garage."

When the Gould family sold No. 163 in 1940 it had already been converted for use by the MacDowell Club.   Named for composer Edward MacDowell, it was formed in 1905 with the goals "to discuss and demonstrate the principles of the arts of music, literature, the drama, painting, sculpture, and architecture, and to aid in the extension of knowledge of works especially fitted to exemplify the finer purposes of these arts."

The organization worked closely with youth groups.  On April 15, 1939, for instance, The Times reported on plays "presented by three competing boys' organizations in the finals of the Eighth Annual Drama Tournament of the Boys' Clubs" to be held here.

In response to the Nazi regime ban of "degenerate music"--that composed by Jews or political opponents--the MacDowell Club hosted a concert on October 15, 1942 by the New York College of Music.  The program was entitled "Concert of Forbidden Music" and included works by Gershwin, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.

It would be among the last productions by the MacDowell Club in the building.  The organization was disbanded that year.  In 1946 the building was converted to a private garage to accommodate up to seven cars owned by the occupants of the two apartments created upstairs.

Meanwhile the Harkness carriage house had remained intact.  Edward S. Harkness died on January 29, 1940 at the age of 66.  At the time of his death he had distributed an estimated $100 million in philanthropies.  While the bulk of his massive estate went to his wife, the former Mary E. Stillman, he left a total of more than $1.25 million to his 78 employees.  Among them was chauffeur James Freely, who lived in the second floor apartment of No. 161 East 73 Street.  He received a bequest of $20,000; in the neighborhood of a third of a million dollars today.

Mary Harkness died ten years later, on June 7, 1950.  The remaining Harkness fortune of about $60 million was distributed to charities.  No. 161 was liquidated in the process, purchased three months later by the Dalcroze School of Music.  The institution, which provided musical instruction and teachers' training, was named after Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, who died that same year.  The New York Times reported on September 13 "The school plans to occupy after alterations."  

Three decades later New York magazine, on August 11, 1980, commented "The Dalcroze School has an old-world charm, from its gray walls, wooden floors, and ubiquitous portraits of Jaques-Dalcroze to the person of Dr. Hila Schuster, who, in a long dark skirt and sweater, graciously presides over every aspect of the school.  Many classes are held in what were once squash courts."

By 1980 No. 163 had been converted to a single-family home; followed by its twin in 1999-2000.  Decades of grime have recently been removed, returning Thomas Rae's innovative take on stable buildings to their 1897 appearance.

photographs by the author

The 1891 Max Nathan Carriage House - 180 East 73rd Street

Max Nathan was born in Germany in 1829.  While he was still a boy his family traveled to American.  Unlike many German immigrants who settled in the Lower East Side, the Nathans continued on to the Midwest choosing Cincinnati as their new home.  In 1870, at the age of 41, Max relocated to New York City where he established the Nathan Manufacturing Company which made railroad equipment.  Within the next two decades he also headed The Sieberg Clinder Oil Cup Co. and had amassed a significant personal fortune.

Nathan erected a mansion at No. 32 East 72nd Street in the fashionable neighborhood steps from Fifth Avenue.  Wealthy home owners required private carriage houses for their vehicles and horses, and while a few erected them directly behind or next to their mansions, separated by lawns or gardens, the odors and noises were offensive to most.  As a result, "stable blocks" cropped up nearby--close enough to be convenient yet remote enough to be unobtrusive.  One such block was East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.

The block had been lined with modest homes erected in the 1860's and '70s.  The one at No. 180 East 73rd Street was described as a "two-story frame (brick front) dwelling."  But that house, like almost all the others on the block, would not survive to the end of the century.  They were rapidly demolished to be replaced by handsome private stables as millionaires moved onto the blocks to the west.

On June 27, 1889 Max Nathan purchased No. 180 from John Vesey for $27,000.  The high price--around $742,000 today--reflected the value of the plot rather than the house itself as the block gained popularity for stables.

Nathan commissioned the prolific architectural firm William Schickel & Co. to design his carriage house.  Schickel, too, was a German immigrant (who arrived in New York City the same year as Nathan) and was responsible for scores of churches, business buildings and homes.

The stable, completed in 1891, was a handsome utilitarian take on Renaissance Revival, with a splash of Romanesque Revival at the ground floor.  Schickel faced the base in undressed granite  blocks.  It took on the expected stable configuration--a large carriage bay flanked by a doorway and window.  Above the bay an unfurled limestone banner was carved with the owner's initials.

Two floors clad in brick sat atop a molded stone cornice.  The architect deftly used three shades of brick to create dimension and architectural detailing--like the window surrounds and the quoin-like boarders of the facade.  The openings were trimmed terra cotta--leafy border tiles and graceful scrolled keystones.

Terra cotta was again used for the bracketed cornice.  The frieze directly below featured stylized anthemia, looking from the street almost like seashells.  They sat against a flame-like pattern of wavy lines.  Above it all sat a pyramidal brick parapet.

While the vehicles and horses were housed on the ground floor, the second floor would have been used partly as storage--for hay and tackle, for instance.  The rest of the second floor and all of the third would have held living accommodations for stable staff.  Behind the building was the manure pit, an odious but necessary element.

Carriages from the East 73rd Street building quite possibly took the Nathans to their country estate, Fairlawn, in Yonkers.  The family also maintained a summer residence in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Nathan was highly involved in charitable works.  He sat on the building committee of Mt. Sinai Hospital and was one of its trustees for three decades, and was a major benefactor of the Trudeau Sanitarium in Saranac, New York.

In 1912 Nathan retired.  He died at the age of 93 on April 19, 1922.  Four months later, on August 14, the New-York Tribune reported that that Nathan estate had sold what was now described as a "three-story private garage."  The article noted that the buyer was "a well known New Yorker."

Indeed he was.  George Dunton Widener, Jr. was born into a massively wealthy and prominent Philadelphia family,  He inherited a fortune through tragedy.

In February 1912 Widener's father sailed to England on business.  George's mother, the former Eleanor Elkins, accompanied him, partially to attend the opening of the London Museum.  She had presented to the museum 30 silver plates once owned by Nell Gwyn.  Along on the trip was George's older brother, Harry Elkins Widener.

When their purposes complete, the Wideners booked passage back to New York on the recently christened R.M.S. Titanic.  On the night the ship hit the iceberg, the Wideners gathered on deck with the other panicked passengers.  George Sr. helped his wife and her maid onto a life boat and watched as it was lowered into the icy waters.  Then he and Harry stood on deck and awaited the inevitable.  Their bodies were never identified.

George, Jr. married the divorcee Jessie Sloane Dodge--daughter of Henry T. and Jessie Sloane--in 1917.  Like Nathan, the couple lived nearby in a mansion at No. 5 East 70th Street, directly behind the palatial Henry C. Frick residence facing Fifth Avenue.

In 1923 Widener had "renovations" done on the 73rd Street building.  Although the plans are vague, the alterations most likely made the former stable more car-friendly.  But while the Wideners got around town in automobiles, George in no way turned his back on horses.

George Widener was less known for his business interests than for his passion for horse racing.  He maintained a 446-acre estate, Erdenheim Farm, outside of Philadelphia where his stable of thoroughbreds were housed and bred.

Widener's horses raced in the most illustrious events.   He was dealt a severe blow in the spring of 1924.  The New York Times reported "George D. Widener's St. James, three-year-old son of Ambassador IV. and Bobolink II. and the hope of the East for the Preakness Stakes and the Kentucky Golden Jubilee Derby, pulled up lame after his Preakness workout at the Belmont Park track yesterday morning and will not be shipped to Baltimore for the Pimlico classic."

The setback could not dampen Widener's love for the sport.  Later that year, in August, he attended the annual yearling auction at Saratoga Springs in order to add to his stable.  On the fourth day of the sale he purchased Calamint for $5,200, nearly $75,000 in today's money.

Jockeys in the 1920's were, for the most part, teen-aged boys who did not weigh as much as even slender adults.  But work on a horse farm got in the way of schooling.  As The New York Times explained on October 14, 1925, "Horses must be exercised and cared for in the morning, which unfortunately happens to be school time."

To remedy the conflict, Widener established a school on the property of Erdenheim Farm.  Now, after the boys had completed their tasks with stable foreman Bert Muholland, "Mrs. Clinton Aldred occupies their afternoons with training in every subject from arithmetic and English to current events and civics."  There were seven boys in the original class, ranging from 14- to 17-years-old, several of whom came from Long Island.

While George concentrated on racing, Jessie mingled among the top echelon of New York socialites.  She worked with Mrs. Vincent Astor for more than a month on preparations for a recital in the Astor's ballroom to benefit the Mental Hygiene Committee of the State Charities Aid Association on January 7, 1926.

By the 1960's the Wideners had moved permanently to Erdenheim Farm.  (Their 70th Street mansion was later demolished for an extension to the Frick Collection.)  In 1965 at least three tenants were living in the former grooms' apartments above the East 73rd Street stables.  Marion A. Dexter, and Marie and Marion Martin were listed at No. 180.

Change came in 1976 when J. H. Guttmann converted the former carriage house for his picture framing shop on the ground floor and part of the second.  A "private art gallery" shared part of the second floor.  The top floor housed a single apartment, presumably home to owner Jakob Guttmann.  The only noticeable exterior change was the carriage bay, now converted to a show window.

The J. H. Guttmann Picture Frame Corp. was no run-of-the-mill frame store.  Its patrons were, according to The New York Times on September 16, 1979 "museums, fine-art dealers and collectors, as well as the average customer."  The article called Guttman one of the three top framing houses in New York and noted it maintained a stock of antique frames "generally ranging fro early Renaissance to 19th-century American."

Guttman's clients include art museums in Los Angeles, Cleveland, St. Louis, Fort Worth and New York.  His services included restoring and regilding frames, and shortening or enlarging them to fit paintings.  Although J. H. Guttman remained in the building at least through the 1980's, it was sold in December 1981, and then again in March 2002.

The Nathan carriage house was put on the market in 2018 for $16,750,000.  Like several of the amazingly-surviving private stable buildings on the block, a private residence is most likely in the building's future.

photographs by the author

The James Roosevelt Carriage House -- No. 165 Crosby Street

Now bricked up, the double-doored carriage bay would have filled the space next to the surviving entrance at the left.  The Roosevelts' coachman would have lived upstairs.

Around 1825 a two-story brick carriage house was constructed on Crosby Street, to the rear of the impressive Federal-style home Jacobus "James" Roosevelt" at No. 56 Bleecker Street (renumbered 64 in 1859).   Roosevelt operated a highly successful hardware importing business.  His first two wives, Mary Eliza Walton and Catherine Elizabeth Barclay, had died.  He married Harriet Howland on January 29, 1821.  This great-grandson would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Roosevelt died on February 6, 1847.  His will left "to his wife, his dwelling house, coach house, and grounds in the city of New York, and his house, farm &c., in the town of Poughkeepsie...during her life, and also an annuity or yearly sum of $5000."  Harriet's annual allowance would amount to about $155,000 today.

Harriet remained in the Bleecker Street house until her dean on April 18, 1856.  It was converted the following year for the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, headed by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician in the United States.

The days of elegant homes and quiet residential streets around the Roosevelt home were quickly drawing to a close.  Sometime after the end of the Civil War the carriage house become the shop of E. and C. L. Day, carriage builders.

On May 18, 1886 the firm placed an advertisement in The Sun for “3 good painters on carriage parts.”  Not just anyone could qualify as a carriage painter.  The position required years of training to meticulously decorate the vehicles with striping and detailing.

By 1898 E. and C. L. Day had spread into the five-story building next door at No. 163 as well, sharing space with the New York and Boston Dispatch Express Co.

E. and C. L. Day not only built carriages, but sold carriage fixtures and by 1902 had branched out into “horses” as well.   

On August 24, 1902 The New York Times reported that Lucy M. Rice had sold the combined buildings for about $30,000.  The article noted “The purchaser, who is a builder, will occupy the premises.”  That purchaser appears to have changed his mind; but did enlarge the carriage house and connect it to the Bleecker Street house (now a restaurant with small shops on the upper floors) with a one-story structure.

E. and C. L. Day left Crosby Street that year and the National Express Company moved in.  The buildings continued to be used by freight companies.   White’s Express Co. was here as early as 1902 and its advertisement in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac that year made clear that the Crosby Street operation was its “express department.”  The “contract wagon department”—the equivalent of a rent-a-truck firm today—was in Brooklyn.

The National Express Company was here at least through 1908, and in 1909 The Sun Monahan Express Company was listed in the building.  It was possibly the advent of motorized trucks that made Nos. 163-165 no longer practical as an express depot.  By 1914 De Luca, De Fina & Co. had taken over the building.  According to The Waste Trade Journal the firm was “dealers and packers in paper mill supplies of every description.”

As the Great Depression cast its long shadow over New York, the little combined buildings hiding on Crosby Street had become what The New York Times described as a “rag factory.”   They were nearly lost to fire on April 5, 1931.

The combustible materials in the rag factory ignited into a three-alarm blaze around 7:30 that evening.    Because of the narrowness of the former carriage alley, firemen fought the fire from the roofs of surrounding buildings.  They were further hampered by the thick smoke created by the burning rags.

The Times said that “tons of water” was poured onto the buildings and onto nearby structures as well.  The newspaper said that the narrowness of Crosby Street “offered the flames a chance to leap across to the ten-story warehouse and office building just opposite.  This structure and adjoining buildings were kept under a constant water barrage until the danger was past.” 

In the meantime, traffic was in chaos.  The newspaper said “motor cars choked Lafayette Street from Cooper Square to Canal Street.”

Around 1961 the five-story building at No. 163 Crosby was demolished to be used as a parking lot.  But No 165 survived; an unrecognizable relic of the early days of what would be called Noho, when wealthy homeowners built private stables for their horses and vehicles.

photographs by the author

The F. W. Woolworth Stables -- No. 121 East 83rd Street

John H. Scheel lived in the three-story brownstone house at No. 121 East 83rd Street in the 1890s.  He was treasurer of the Yorkville Dispensary and Hospital for Women and Children.  The charity institution was "confined to the Dispensary for treatment of poor women and children only."

Around the turn of the century the house was converted as the headquarters of the Shawnee Club.  A Democratic political group, The New York Times on December 16, 1901 said it "represents Tammany power" in the district.

Scheel evicted his tenants when they stopped paying rent in October 1902.  But it appears to have been a mutual arrangement.  The Sun reported "Myer J. Stein said last night that the club quit paying rent in October at the request of the landlord, John Shields [sic], in order that the lease, which would have run to Feb 15, might be broken, as the property was to be sold."

The buyers were developers Evans & Buscall, who planned an upscale private carriage house on the site.  The block by now was filling with the private stables of Fifth Avenue millionaires.  In November Hamilton & Mesereau filed plans for a "3-story brick stable" costing $33,000--in the neighborhood of $940,000 today.

The office J. A. Hamilton and W. H. Mesereau was far downtown at No. 32 Broadway.  Mesereau was a structural engineer as well as architect.  Theirs was an intriguing partnership; apparently working independently as often as together as Hamilton & Mesereau.

A year earlier C. P. H. Gilbert had designed Frank W. Woolworth's new mansion at northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 80th Street.  Construction on what Bankers Magazine deemed "one of the notably fine houses in that center of wealth and fashion" was completed just prior to the 83rd Street carriage house.

On July 21, 1903 The New York Times reported that Evans & Buscal had sold "the new three-story private stable" to Woolworth, noting that the price had been set at $50,000--a substantial $1.4 million in today's dollars.

While technically three stories, the carriage house rose to nearly the equivalent of four.  A half-story loft above the ground floor added to the height.  Hamilton & Mesereau had produced an extremely handsome edifice faced in Flemish-bond variegated brick.  The gray and tan headers contrasted with the red length-wise bricks.  Splayed limestone lintels and double-keystones reflected the neo-Federal motif; while carved panels of floral swags and a wreath and bow in the tympanum over the carriage bay were elegant neo-Classical touches.  The unusual triangular brackets upholding the cornice were a dramatic addition.


Woolworth's impressive fleet of vehicles and expensive horses were housed on ground level.  Behind the elegant structure would have been a much less appealing but necessary feature--the manure pit.  It was the odors (with the accompanying problem of flies) and the bothersome noises of stables that brought about "stable blocks" where there were few, if any, residences.

On the two upper floors the mogul's most important stable employees lived.  The main coachman and the groom are the most likely candidates.  In many cases the entire families of the employees resided in comfortable accommodations (discounting, of course, the manure stench).

By the time Woolworth died on April 8, 1919, the carriage house was already being leased to Murry Guggenheim.  Horses had given way to automobiles by now, and he had renovations done to the building that year, converting it to a garage for "not more than five cars."  Building Department records reveal that the top floor was to be used as a "dwelling for one employee."

A year after Woolworth's death, on April 22, 1920, the first of the auctions of his massive real estate holdings was held.  But three months earlier, the 83rd Street garage was sold separately to what the New-York Tribune, on January 13, described as "a well known businessman residing on Fifth Avenue."  That businessman was Murry Guggenheim.

He was the third of eight sons of Meyer Guggenheim.  Meyer's was a Horatio Alger-worthy story.  The Jewish immigrant arrived from Switzerland in 1847, starting out as an itinerant peddler.  When get-rich-quick prospectors headed West for gold and silver, Guggenheim invested in copper mines in Colorado.  Mining and smelting of copper, silver, lead and gold made the Guggenheim family's fortune one of the largest in 19th century America.

Murry Guggenheim and his wife, the former Leonie Bernheim, had two children, Edmond and Lucille.  Their mansion was at No. 998 Fifth Avenue at 81st Street, conveniently near the carriage house.

Throughout the years Murry and Leonie supported extensive charities.  In 1929 they formed the Murry and Leonie Guggenheim Foundation which built and maintained a dental clinic for indigent school children.  In 1921 he and his brothers donated $1 million for a private pavilion at Mount Sinai Hospital, and earlier he gave the hospital its first motor-driven ambulance.  He and his brother David presented the Central Display Greenhouse to the New York Botanical Gardens in 1919.

Following David Guggenheim's death in 1930 Murry became the head of Guggenheim Brothers.  He steadfastly went to his office at No. 120 Broadway every day until Friday, November 10, 1939 when, at the age of 81, he became ill.  He died five days later.

Guggenheim's estate was appraised at nearly $19 million and papers listed gifts from 1917 until his death at about $16 million.  His will bequeathed to Leonie the Fifth Avenue mansion, "his household and personal effects," property in Colorado, and "real property at 121 East Eighty-third Street."

The Guggenheim family continued to use the private garage for years.  Then, in 1965, the ground floor and "mezzanine" were converted to a photographic studio and the upper floors to a duplex apartment.  A subsequent renovation in 1996 turned the photography studio into medical offices.

Today the Woolworth carriage house is one of only a handful which survive on the former stable block.  Its stylish 1903 facade reminds the passerby of the elegant housing the horses of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens enjoyed in the early years of the last century.

photographs by the author

The Oliver H. Payne Carriage House - No. 126 East 66th St

In 1889 architect Charles C. Haight set to work on two mansions designed to appear as one, at the northern corner of Fifth Avenue and East 66th Street.  The hulking residence for millionaire Henry O. Havemeyer would sit at the corner and face sideways, taking the address No. 1 East 66th Street.  Its matching, smaller brother, at No. 852 Fifth Avenue would become home to bachelor Oliver Hazard Payne.

Havemeyer's mansion faced 66th Street.  Payne's residence (to the left in this photo), looking much like simply another turret, faced Fifth Avenue.  photo by  Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWO9LAKQ&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Once in their grand homes, the two moguls addressed another need, their carriage houses.  In June 1895 Havemeyer purchased the three-story house at No. 134 East 66th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, from Edgar Davidson (the address would later be renumbered No. 126).  It completed a plot necessary for two lavish private stables--one for himself and the other for Payne.

Havemeyer was obviously in charge of the project.  He owned the land and it would appear he chose the architects, S. E. Gage and W. J. Wallace.  Wallace was his cousin.  The two stables, designed to appear as a unit, were completed in February 1896.  The behind-the-scenes dealings between the two neighbors were obvious when Havemeyer transferred title to the "three story brick stable" on February 26.  The price listed was "nominal."

The architects had created harmonious Romanesque Revival structures of light-colored Roman brick, trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta.  Like his mansion, Payne's carriage house was a smaller version of Havemeyer's.  Only about half as wide at 28 feet, it was nevertheless spacious and functional.

Munsey's Magazine, May 1900 (copyright expired)

In 1900 Munsey's Magazine described the interior as having "tiles and polished wood and wrought metal of modern magnificence," and depicted its "church-like solemnity, where ten or a dozen traps may repose at once in dignity and comfort; the harness cupboards with plate glass doors, and the velvet lined cases for the shining bits and buckles."

Upstairs were the living quarters for Payne's stable staff.  "The coachmen and grooms are no less well treated than the aristocratic beasts they serve, for their quarters overhead abound in hard wood, enameled tubs, shower baths, and all the comforts of modern heating, ventilation, and plumbing."

Two years later, in an article about Manhattan's lavish private carriage houses being outfitted with modern "sanitary science," Engineering Review mentioned "the private stables of New York's horse-loving millionaires have become celebrated by reason of the addition of such well-known stables as those of H. O. Havemeyer and Colonel Oliver H. Payne at 134 and 136 East Sixty-sixth street."

Rounded bricks soften the corners, while tapered bricks create a sunburst effect over the arched opening.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 21, 1839, Payne was named after Oliver Hazard Perry, a relative of his mother, Mary Perry.  He earned his title Colonel during the Civil War in the 124th Ohio Infantry.  Following the war, he invested in iron and oil refining.  When Standard Oil acquired his interests around 1868, he became the treasurer of that firm.  He assisted in the formation of U. S. Steel and organized the American Tobacco Trust.  By the time he moved his horses and fleet of vehicles into the 66th Street structure he was considered among the 100 wealthiest men in the United States.

The mothers of Manhattan's debutantes may have had high hopes to snag Manhattan's most eligible bachelor, but marriage was not in Payne's future.  And while he enjoyed his massive fortune, building the world class steam yacht Aphrodite in 1898, for instance, he was lavishly generous to his family.

He gave his sister in Ohio "a beautiful home in the outskirts of Cleveland, besides providing for the education of her children," according to The Sun, and he built a Fifth Avenue mansion for his other sister, Mrs. William C. Whitney.   When her son, Payne Whitney, was married to Helen Hay in February 1902, he presented the couple with a stunning wedding present--a marble mansion at No. 972 Fifth Avenue designed by McKim, Mead & White. 

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

Oliver H. Payne's name appeared in newspapers in 1914 when the list of Americans earning more than $1 million per year was made public.  That amount would translate to about 25 times that much today.  His philanthropies were well-known, although he "would never discuss it," according to The Sun.  In 1913 he gave $4,350,000 to Cornell University, where he had already established its medical school.  His gifts to the university would top $8 million in his lifetime.

The bachelor millionaire died in his Fifth Avenue mansion on June 27, 1917 at the age of 78.  His holdings in the Standard Oil Company alone were estimated at the time at a staggering $90 million.  His will left large gifts to institutions like the New York Public Library, the Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland and Dale University, each of which received $1 million.   The Metropolitan Museum of Art received gifts, including a priceless late Gothic tapestry.  The Sun reported that it "has the exceptional interest of being signed by Jan Van Room, also called Jan Van Brussel, who was painter to Margaret of Savoy, Regent of the Netherlands (1507-1530)."

Payne Whitney's share of the estate was significant.  He received all of his uncle's "chattels, furniture, pictures, silver, china books, and personal effects, all his interests in social, shooting or fishing clubs, as well as his yacht and the country place called 'Greenwood Plantation" in Thomasville, Ga., and all other real estate except the place in Ulster county," according to The Sun on July 7, 1917.  Among "all other real estate" was the carriage house on East 66th Street.

By 1920 Payne Whitney's fleet of vehicles had a different type of horse power than his uncle's.  Cabriolets and broughams had been replaced by touring cars and limousines.  Louis Weiniger was Whitney's chauffeur and he lived upstairs in the former carriage house.  On September 16, 1920 he drove his employer to Wall Street.

Domestic terrorism had gripped Manhattan for two decades.  In the early years of the 20th century it was anarchist groups like the Black Hand which were responsible for bombings and murders.  Now communist agitators plotted deadly attacks.  Just before noon that day, Louis Weiniger was parked in an unfortunate spot.

In the equivalent of today's car bombings, a horse-drawn wagon containing 1,000 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of iron sash weights and other shrapnel pulled up to the J. P. Morgan building at No. 23 Wall Street.  The subsequent blast was fearsome, blowing out the glass panes of office buildings for blocks. There were 30 immediate fatalities and hundreds of injured. Six more would subsequently die of wounds.

Other drivers were not as fortunate as Louis Weiniger.  photo from the collection of the Library of Congress

Payne Whitney's chauffeur was among the luckier victims.  He was treated for scalp wounds received from flying debris.

When Whitney died on May 25, 1927, he left what The New York Times declared "The largest estate ever appraised in this country"--$178.893,655, or about $2.5 billion today.  Much of his wealth was held in stocks.  The newspaper noted that "This enormous volume of stocks...grew from a fund of many millions set aside some years ago for Mr. Whitney and others by Mr. Whitney's uncle, the late Colonel Oliver H. Payne."

At the time of his death, the carriage house was valued at $80,000.  It passed to Whitney's son, John Hay Whitney.   Almost unique among personal stables of the 19th century, No. 126 East 66th Street continued to be used as a private garage.  In 1969 John Hay Whitney housed his nine vehicles here.  That year the AIA Guide to New York City noted "Rarely does even consciously monumental architecture achieve such power."

Somewhat sadly, by the time the editors Norval White and Elliot Willensky made the comment, the Havemeyer carriage house had been demolished, leaving the Payne stable looking a bit off center and squashed. 

Whitney died in 1982.  Known familiarly as Jock, his remarkable and varied career included U. S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, president of the Museum of Modern Art, and chairman of the board of Selznick International Pictures.  He funded half of the production costs of Gone with the Wind, and for the 1940 film Rebecca.

The Payne carriage house continues its original purpose today--a garage on the ground floor and a single residence above.  While it could stand a facade cleaning, its continuous use by a single family has resulted in its nearly perfect preservation.

photographs by the author

Stable to Factory to Art Studio -- No. 502 East 74th Street

Shortly after the end of the Civil War the Yorkville neighborhood began filling with modest homes and small business buildings such as butcher shops and groceries.  Large commercial concerns along the river—slaughterhouses, breweries and cigar factories among them—lured immigrant workers.  Along with the other structures, private stables dotted the streetscape.

One of them, a two story brick carriage house at No. 502 East 74^th Street, had been converted for commercial use by 1892.  The building was unexceptional in its design.  Its slight width required the architect to set its arched carriage entrance to the side, rather than centered as was often the case.   There was no attempt at expensive embellishments—the embellishments of the elliptical arched openings were executed in brick, rather than stone; as was the projecting bandcourse above the upper windows; and the cornice was creatively composed of bricks laid in a honey-comb pattern.

The former carriage house now housed a woodworking factory.  The firm installed the finished paneling and other interior architectural elements in structures under construction.  In April 1892 the well-organized and powerful United Wood Carvers’ Association had won an eight-hour workday.  But the owners of the 74^th Street firm refused to budge.

The Annual Report of the Board of Mediation and Arbitration reported “Among the few manufacturers who refused to yield to the demands of the association, and insisted upon an increase in the hours of labor, was a firm whose factory is at 502 East Seventy-fourth street.”

The tense relationship between the workers and the firm dragged on into the summer of 1893.  The company had several large contracts on buildings being constructed; and the union saw its opportunity.  It ordered a strike and not only did the wood carvers and installers from No. 502 East 74^th Street walk off the job, so did 400 other construction workers including house painters, plasterers, carpenters, paper hangers, varnishers, and fresco painters among others.

The union won.  The Annual Report noted “On August eighth the strike was declared off, after the firm had agreed to grant the eight-hour workday and to require the carvers then employed in the factory to join the union on or before August eleventh.”

But the wood working firm may have had the last word.  The demands of the union quite possibly put it out of business and within two months No. 502 was home to a different firm-- Jacobs & Marcus, makers of mineral water.

On May 6, 1894 the factory was the scene of a sensational arrest.  Nicholaus Riegel and his wife lived above his bakery at No. 1382 Avenue A.  Around 3:00 in the morning Mrs. Riegel awoke and realized there were three burglars prowling about in the dark.  When she screamed, the men ran; but her husband was quickly close on their trail.  Policemen McKnight and Palasco joined the chase and saw them duck into No. 502 East 74^th Street.

When Officer Palasco entered the dark factory space, he was attacked by James Johnson.  But, according to The New York Times the following day, “Palasco took out his revolver and Johnson surrendered.  Palasco and McKnight then took the men to the station house.”

The burglars left behind their spoils.  Policemen later found “two suits of apparel, which Riegel identified as his Sunday suit, and his business clothes.  Nothing else had been stolen, but an attempt had been made to open the cash drawer in the store.”

Jacobs & Marcus joined the Soda Water Manufacturers’ Protective Association.  The “protection” provided by the organization drew the attention of the renowned Lexow Committee in 1894.  The New York State Senate probe sniffed out corruption within the police department.  It appears that the “dues” A. Jacobs and Solomon Marcus were required to pay simply kept their factory operating without problems.

The mineral water factory continued here for several years.  In 1898 it employed five male workers who worked an average of 60 hours each per week.  But in 1902 Jacobs & Marcus was forced to dissolve after filing a petition of bankruptcy.

The old carriage house now became the home of the Eastern Marble Company.  Incorporated in 1871, it focused on a utilitarian type of marble fixtures.  The Butchers’ Advocate noted on May 10, 1905, that “The marble work in Louis Stern’s new market at 2,251 Third Avenue is being done by the Eastern Marble Company, who operate steam marble works at 502 East Seventy-fourth Street.”  The publication pointed out “The company has for years been making a specialty of this class of work, having for its customers many of the leading butcher fixture manufacturers.”

In November 1908 hints of trouble for the Eastern Marble Company arose.  The New-York Tribune noted that the firm listed liabilities of $57,228; while its assets, including machinery, were just $23,906.  Within the year partners Josef Poksteff and Frank Steyskal declared bankruptcy.

At the time Glaser, Rohrer & Co. was doing business from its factory at Nos. 737-729 First Avenue.  But soon after Eastern Marble left East 74^th Street, the drugstore fixture makers moved in.  Glaser, Rohrer & Co. not only manufactured individual cabinets and counters; but entire drugstore interiors.  On November 1912 The Druggists Circular noted that “R. W. Loveland...was so well pleased with an outfit of store fixtures made for him about a year ago by Glaser, Rohrer & Co. 502 East Seventy-fourth street, New York, that when he wanted to add to it a short time ago, he applied to the same concern to make the additions.”

The same edition of the journal pointed out that P. Cataldi had recently purchased a building in Orange, New Jersey and “it has been completely fitted with drug store furniture by Glaser, Rohrer, & Co.”

An example of the drugstore interiors provided by Glaser, Rohrer & Co.  American Druggist October 1914 (copyright expired)

Druggists had a wide range of fixtures from which to choose when dealing with Glaser, Rohrer & Co.  In 1914 The American Druggist noted that “They have the fixtures complete as low as $350.  They can make them for you as high as $3,500.  But whether the fixtures ordered are the cheapest or the most expensive, one can rest assured that they will be well designed, well built, and made of good material.”  The range of prices quoted by the journal would equate to amounts from $8,500 to $85,000 in 2016.

Glaser, Rohrer & Co. was still in No. 502 East 74^th Street when the American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record warned druggists about out-of-date shopping environments.  “The old fashioned drug store, its fixtures, respectable albeit hoary with age, does not make an appeal to the purchasing desire of the modern public.  So if possible make everything bright and new and up to date.”  

The magazine (no doubt with some financial coaxing from Glaser, Rohrer & Co.) advised “You will be surprised not only at how much better your goods look in the display wall cases that Glaser, Rohrer & Co… supply for the modern drug store, but at how much better they sell.”  The article added “Let them plan your installation according to the size of your pocketbook, and then give your competitor a run for his money.”

Despite its apparent success, Glaser, Rohrer & Co. was gone by 1920 when the Yorkville Marble Company was doing business from No. 502.  That year the company received unwanted publicity when it was named in an inquiry by U.S. Senator William M. Calder’s inquiry into a “Marble Trust.”  The Marble Industry Employers’ Association was deemed by the senator as, in fact, a conspiracy “of building material supply men and manufacturers and of members of organized labor.”  On December 11, 1920 the New-York Tribune reported that the principals of the Yorkville Marble Company had been indicted along with 27 other “stone men.”

Despite the ugly press, the company survived and remained in No. 502 through 1930.  The following year it was home to the Rand Furniture Manufacturing Company; and by 1942 had been taken over by the Yorkville Wood Products Associates.

In the 1970s the building's owner ran a newspaper delivery service from the ground floor.  He was approached by a "film maker" who was desirous of renting the second floor.  After an agreement was reached, the tenant made alterations, including a metal security door.

The owner's suspicions were slightly raised when his new tenant demanded that "no one" was to be admitted upstairs and, in addition, paid his rent only in cash.  It was only after police raided the premises that the owner (whose delivery business was always closed during the night) discovered there was an illegal gambling den operating there.

His son, Guy Mitchell Lewit, is a co-owner of the property today.  He recalls that the police used "axes and sledgehammers" to destroy the gambling tables.  "The entire space," he said, "had been carpeted in dark purple, including the floors, walls and ceilings."


Through it all the little brick carriage house survived as East 74^th Street saw the rise of large factories and apartments houses and the massive power plant at the eastern end of the block.   Today, the unexpected survivor is painted a Halloweenish orange and black, and is home to the studio of respected art conservationists Simon Parkes Art Conservation.

photographs by the author