The Horace Waters & Co. Piano Building - 134 Fifth Avenue

 

In the 1840's wealthy merchant Henry Beadel and his family lived at 707 Broadway, a neighborhood of fine brick mansions.  But following the construction of Henry and Laura Brevoort's lavish home on Fifth Avenue at 9th Street in 1834, fashion began moving to that thoroughfare.  In 1851 the Beadels were listed at their new Fifth Avenue residence, between 18th and 19th Streets.

The brownstone-fronted house held its own among the other Fifth Avenue mansions at four stories tall above an English basement.  At the time, Henry and his wife, the former Sarah Ebbets, had three sons, 7-year-old Henry Jr., 6-year-old Charles, and 4-year-old Frederick.  In 1851, soon after the family moved into their new home, a daughter, Sarah, was born, and Edward M. Beadel arrived in 1852.

Along with his mercantile business, Beadel invested in real estate and was a director in the Howard Life Insurance Co.  Like all well-to-do families, the Beadels summered in fashionable resorts or in Europe.  On July 3, 1862, The New York Times reported that the family had sailed on the Mercury, headed for Havre.  Both Henry Jr. and Charles were enrolled at Columbia College, by then.

Henry Beadel died in 1874 and by 1876 the family left 134 Fifth Avenue, leasing it to former Minister to France, Nelson Marvin Beckwith and his wife, the former Frances Margaret Forbes.  In compiling its list of "American Millionaires," the New-York Tribune reported that Beckwith had made his fortune "in the China trade and importation of spices and coffee."  He and Frances had three children, Leonard Forbes, Frances Helene Forbes, and Arthur.  A second daughter, Adelaide, had died in 1871.

The Beckwiths' elevated social station was reflected in a dinner party they held on December 12, 1884.  The New York Times remarked, 

Mr. and Mrs. N. M. Beckwith, of No. 134 Fifth-avenue, entertained Mr. and Mrs. Orme Wilson, née Astor, at what was probably one of the most elaborate dinner parties of the season.  The table was decorated with a large centre basket filled with Gloire de Paris and Jacqueminot roses, and at each end was a basket of maidenhair ferns.  Between the centre basket and the ferns was placed at each end a handsome Louis Quatorze candelabrum, each holding six red candles with red satin shades.  Covers for 24 were laid.

Among the two dozen guests that evening was Mrs. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, the mother and mother-in-law of the guests of honor.  Also invited was Louise Ward McAllister, the daughter of Mrs. Astor's closest ally, Ward McAllister.

By the time of the dinner party, Arthur listed his profession as an artist and sometimes as an architect, while Leonard was a civil engineer.  

In September 1889 Nelson Beckwith died.  He left each of his children $300,000 (around $9.1 million by 2022 conversion), and equal shares in 800 acres of land.  The year after Nelson's death, Frances Helene married Hon. Francis Dudley Leigh of London.

The Beckwith name, however, soon appeared in print for darker reasons.  In 1890 Arthur was deemed insane and committed to an asylum in Litchfield, Connecticut, from which he promptly escaped.  He was found in 1893 hiding in Cuba, was returned to New York City and placed in a "retreat" in Flushing.  He escaped again and was not heard of again.

The New York Times reported on March 27, 1898, "Leonard Forbes Beckwith took charge of his brother's estate when he disappeared...During the same year--1893--he also went insane, and died shortly afterward."  

In the meantime, the Fifth Avenue neighborhood had become more and more commercialized.  The Beadel family hired the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine in 1888 to convert their former home for commercial purposes.  The stoop was removed and a store space installed at ground level.  It became home to the showroom of the Horace Waters & Co. piano firm, while the upper floors were leased to The School of Industrial Art and Technical Design for Women.

The Evening World, December 21, 1891 (copyright expired)

Howard Waters & Co. was established in 1845 by Horace Waters.  At its factory at 7 West 139th Street it made the Waters and Chester pianos, and the Autola player pianos.  Howard's sons, T. Leeds Waters and Horace Jr. had become partners around 1864, and after Horace Waters's death in 1893, the firm was headed by T. Leeds Waters.  The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries called the company "one of the best-known dealers in New York City."

The School of Industrial Art and Technical Design for Women was founded in the fall of 1881 by Florence Elizabeth Cory.  Its purpose was to train women in "manufactured arts."  In 1893 King's Handbook of New York said it "successfully teaches designing for carpets, wall-paper, cretonne, calico, silk, linen, portieres, carved and inlaid work, stained glass, lace decorated cards, china and all industrial art manufacturers."

The school remained in the building through 1894, after which the Beadel family remodeled it again.  This time architect Charles R. Behrens completely transformed the structure, erasing all hints of its domestic origins.  The brownstone was stripped off and a modern cast iron facade installed.   The two-story storefront was decorated with ornate Aesthetic style designs, and each of the upper floors was defined by a prominent intermediate cornice.  A frieze of neo-Classical wreaths and garlands ran below the terminal cornice.

Horace Waters & Co. remained in the two lower floors, taking advantage of the vast show windows.  A long-time employee was Samuel Tilly White, who was hired at the age of 16 in 1870 as a "bundle boy."  Decades later, as a branch manager and salesman, he would bring his small son Elywyn Brooks White to work on special visits.  The boy would go on to become the well-known writer and author E. B. White.  In 1969 his granddaughter, Martha White, published Letters of E. B. White, in which he described those visits:

When I was a child, I used to watch parades from a front-row seat next to the big plate glass window on the second floor of 134 Fifth Avenue--a splendid vantage point.  I was "Mr. White's boy," marked for the special treatment.  I made many visits to 134 and remember particularly the wonderful sad sound of a piano being tuned somewhere in the building.

The three upper floors were leased to other tenants, like the publishers of School Magazine, here in 1914.

The Evening World, February 27, 1922 (copyright expired)

In 1929 Howard Waters & Co. merged with The Janssen Piano Company.  (The Howard Waters name would be discontinued around 1949.)  Its former showroom became a restaurant.

After having owned the property for nearly a century, the Beadel family sold 134 Fifth Avenue in 1940.  The restaurant's lease was discontinued the following year.

In 1941 the two-story restaurant space was vacant.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1950 A. J. Van Dugteren & Sons opened its showrooms and offices here.  The importer of European glass and pottery had previously operated from 5 East 57th Street.  Around the same time East House enterprises, manufacturers and importers of paper products occupied space on the upper floors.  The firm would remain until early in 1964.

Somewhat abused by the last quarter of the 20th century, the building saw a series of occupants.  In 1971 the Underground Gallery opened with an exhibition of photographs by Norman Snyder and Fred Picker.  On the fourth floor, from 1974 to 1982, was the studio of photographer Eric Meola.  It was the scene of a photo shoot on June 20, 1975 that resulted in, as Meola words it, "one of the most famous rock album covers"--Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run.  (Meola discusses the shoot with the artist and Clarence Clemons in his blog site.)

The cover opens to reveal the complete photograph of both men.  © Eric Meola

More recently, in 2015 a Nautica pop-up store opened in the lower levels, followed by a Tracy Reese pop-up store in 2017.  A bit battered today, the building encapsulates more than a century and a half of change along the block--from a period of elegant mansions, to women's struggles to obtain equality in the workplace, and to modern photography and trendy boutiques.

 

photographs by the author

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Chas. R. Behren's 1892 54-56 Franklin Street

Visitors to the Foley Square courthouses today might pass through the Collect Pond Park.  Its name is the last reminder of the 48-acre body of water that reached a depth of 60 feet in some sections.  During the mid-18th century it was a popular destination for picnics in the summer and ice skating in the winter.  But the expansion of the city brought tanneries, slaughterhouses and similar businesses that dumped their waste in the lake.  By the end of the 18th century it was derided as "a very sink and common sewer."  By 1813 the entire Collect Pond had been filled in.

An 1880 engraving by Charles E. H. Bonwill, depicted the 1796 test of John Finch's steamboat on Collect Pond.  With him in the boat is Robert Fulton.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

With the odorous problem eliminated, Sugar Loaf Street was extended east to Broadway in 1816 and its name changed to Franklin Street, in honor of Benjamin Franklin.   The street soon filled with respectable brick faced homes.  But by the end of the Civil War, those houses began being replaced by commercial structures.

The two brick buildings at Nos. 54 and 56 Franklin Street were gone in September 1891--possibly the result of a fire.  Developer John Townsend Williams purchased the vacant lots from the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Co. for $90,000.   He was just completing construction of the Romanesque Revival style loft building three blocks away, at Nos. 152-154 Franklin Street, when he hired architect Charles R. Behrens to design Nos. 54 and 56 Franklin Street.

Behrens turned to the currently popular Romanesque Revival style--just as John B. Snook Sons had done at Nos. 152-154 Franklin Street.  But the two would be widely different.  The John B. Snook Sons structure was remarkably light and airy with great expanses of glass.  Nos. 54-56, completed in 1892, was a much more somber take on the style.

The two story base of rough-cut stone framed a handsome cast iron storefront.  The overall stern personality of the building was tempered by the graceful arches of the second floor--their spandrels decorated with cast iron garlands and brackets.  Behrens ignored the expected arched openings at the mid-section, preferring no-nonsense square headed windows instead.   But at the top floor, above a projecting stone cornice, he produced an attractive arcade--each opening separated by piers with stone capitals, and connected by brick eyebrows.

The second floor exhibits especially graceful details in cast iron.

Among Williams's earliest tenants were commission merchant G. F. Jempson; the Home Soap Company; cutlery, hardware and gun dealer Herman Boker & Co.; and F. L. Harding, manufacturer of "unique valentines, tally cards and the 'Handy Tally Cabinets," as described in The American Stationer.  By 1898 Clucas Publishing Company was in the building, as well, publishers of trade journals like the Commercial Enquirer and the Commercial Reporter.

When the Sportsmen's Association held its second annual Sportsmen's Exposition in Madison Square Garden in March 1896, Herman Boker & Co. exhibited its firearms.  The firm was again exhibiting in Madison Square Garden in January 1899; but this time it was not rifles and pistols the firm was advertising, but its bicycles.  The New-York Tribune explained the exhibit on January 22 saying in part "To the enthusiastic followers of the bicycle is promised a rare treat ad Madison Square Garden this week.  The Garden is now a cycle city."

Ironically, on the very night of the Tribune's article fire broke out in Herman Boker & Co.'s Franklin Street space.  Two days later The New York Times reported that the firm suffered damages equaling more than $300,000 today.   The blaze did not spread to any other floors.

The top floor of the building was occupied at the time by the Home Suspender Company factory, and the fifth floor was home to the Peerless Suspender Company.  On the evening of November 9 that year another fire broke out; this time a small one in the Peerless factory.  R. E. Van Der Veer, manager of the Home Suspender Company, rushed downstairs to successfully help extinguish the blaze.

A wonderful Gothic-arched delivery entrance is on the Cortlandt Alley side.

The following day The New York Times reported "After all was quiet he fell to work with such a will that when his bookkeeper left him he did not take the precaution to tell him to leave the key to the front door in the regular hiding place, so that he could get out."   It was a regrettable mistake, for when the bookkeeper got to the street door, he absent-mindedly put the key in his pocket and went home.

Two hours later Van Der Veer turned out the lights and headed down the stairs.  He felt around behind the radiator where the key was normally hidden.  Thinking that it had possibly fallen, he groped around in the dirt under the radiator, coming up with only a few loose nails.  Pounding on the door was useless.  Franklin Street was deserted.

The Times said "Then he went to the top floor again, muttering things about the bookkeeper, and called up Police Headquarters on the telephone."  Three policemen arrived to rescue the imprisoned executive.

The first years of the 20th century saw two of the long-term tenants leave.  On January 31, 1901 The Pharmaceutical Era announced that "Increasing business and urgent need for more room has driven the Home Soap Co. from 54 and 56 Franklin street, where they have been for several years."   And two years later to the day The American Stationer reported that F. L. Harding had moved.  "The constantly increasing demand for these well-known Harding goods has made this move necessary."

On February 10, 1903 F. L. Harding announced the move in The New England Stationer and Printer (copyright expired)

The removals did not signal problems for F. Hoyt, who had purchased the building from Williams for $250,000 in June 1895.  No. 54-56 continued to attract tenants, including the Boland Commission Co., the Maintenance Company, which took the third floor in February 1904, and wholesale paper merchants Osborn & Wilson, and Wilson & Towne Paper Co.

The Maintenance Company had been established in 1897.  It was an interesting, early example of a contract equipment repair firm.  A 1907 advertisement promised that "Machinery protection costs but a trifle and may be the means of saving you thousands of dollars' loss, aside from the hazard to lfie and limb."  The firm scheduled regular inspections, repairs and routine maintenance of elevators, pumps, motors and dynamos.

Boland Commission Co. represented Hines' Patent Hammock in 1903  The House Furnishing Review, April 1903 (copyright expired)

The ground floor store was home to Benj. McCabe & Brother in the first years of the 20th century.  An advertisement in the American Carpet & Upholstery Journal gave a hint of the broad array of floor coverings the wholesaler and importer handled.  "Carpets, Rugs, Cocoa Mats and Matting, China and Japan Matting, Linoleum, Etc."

By 1909 the Schenck Chemical Co. was making its patent drugs here, including its Dr. Edwards' Dandelion.  An advertisement in the Vermont newspaper, The Bennington Evening Banner on March 6 that year promised that Dandelion was the

Best Known Remedy for Rheumatism and Malaria.  Stimulates the kidneys so as to eliminate the uric acid that causes Rheumatism and Kidney Disease, regulates a Torpid Liver; acts gently and without griping on the bowels; disinfects the entire Alimentary Canal and produces a clean, smooth Skin and clear Complexion, by eliminating all poisons from the system.

In 1920 the Robert Roy Co., dealers in stationery, took the second floor.  The firm immediately placed a help-wanted advertisement in the New-York Tribune for a "telephone operator [with] some knowledge of typewriting."

Robert Roy Co.  would be a long-term tenant, remaining at least for two decades.  By then it shared the building with the Apr Burr Printing House, which took space in 1941.

The Franklin Street building was a pioneer in conversion of Tribeca factories to residential space.  In 1977 it was converted to two apartments per floor above the ground floor, with a single apartment on the sixth floor.

The Franklin 54 Gallery was at street level in 2004; occupied today by Postmasters Gallery.  In need of a gentle cleaning, the 1892 structure is remarkably intact.

photographs by the author