The Arnet Seaman House - 51 Charles Street

 

photograph by the author

Sir Peter Warren's country estate engulfed 300 acres in the 18th century.  By the time Abraham Van Nest died in the former Warren house, known as "The Manse," in 1864, the mansion sat within just a single city block, bounded by Bleecker, Charles, Perry and West Fourth Streets.

Developers quickly swooped in.  The Van Nest block was leveled, building lots plotted, and houses erected.  Oddly, in a nod to the respected Van Nest family, the northern side of Charles Street between West Fourth and Bleecker Streets was named Van Nest Place.  (Adding to the confusion of only the northern side of the block being so named, it was routinely spelled Vannest, Vanness or Van Ness Place.)

In 1866, George Starr began construction of a brick-faced mansion at the northwest corner of West Fourth Street and Van Nest Place.  Completed in 1867, the Italianate-style home was three bays wide and three stories tall above a brownstone basement.  A stone stoop rose to the parlor floor where, most likely, a cast iron balcony fronted the floor-to-ceiling windows.  The elliptically arched openings originally wore molded eyebrows and the doorway would have been impressive--adorned with scrolled brackets and a pediment or similar treatment.

Arnet Seaman and his wife, the former Mary Anna Rhodes Riffey, purchased 1 Van Nest Place.  Arnet, who operated a brick business, was born in 1814 and Mary in 1821.  The couple had surviving children: John Henry and Ambrose.  A daughter, Jenny, had died in childhood and the eldest son, William A., had died at the age of 24 in 1866--the year before his parents bought the Van Nest Place.  The family maintained a country home in Tarrytown, New York.

Even affluent families leased unneeded space in their homes and shortly after moving in, on February 22, 1867, the Seamans advertised:

A very pleasant room and bedroom to let, separately or together, to gentlemen or gentleman and wife, with Board; house new, with every convenience.

"Every convenience" in 1867 would have included gas lighting and indoor plumbing.

By 1873, John Henry, who was now 24 years old, had joined his father's business.  It had expanded and now offered "masons' building materials" with at least two locations.

The Real Estate Record, March 13, 1880 (copyright expired)

Ambrose, most likely, would have joined them.  But on August 31, 1875, the 19-year-old died "suddenly," as worded by the New York Herald.  The term implied an accident.  Ambrose's funeral was held in the parlor, and his body interred at Tarrytown.

Arnet and Mary Seaman moved permanently to Tarrytown around 1887.  When he died there on October 23, 1893, the New-York Tribune remarked, "His estate is estimated at $500,000."  The figure would translate to about $18 million in 2026.

No. 1 Van Nest Place became home to the family of Alderman John Cavanagh.  His wife and young adult children were terrified by an incident that took place on the night of December 18, 1888 while Cavanagh was not home.

At around 8:30, a man climbed the stoop and "rang the door-bell repeatedly," as reported by The Evening Post.  Mrs. Cavanagh looked out of a window and did not recognize the stranger.  "He shouted to her to open the door, and when she ordered him to leave, he used bad language and kicked at the door," said the article.

He then descended the stoop and went to the basement door, kicking it so hard that one of the panels caved in.  As he was doing so, the Cavanagh's daughter hurried down the stoop to find a policeman.  She was seen, however.  The intruder ordered her to stop and chased after her.  The terrified girl ran into Policeman Nash at Perry and Greenwich Streets, who arrested Oscar Hatfield.  At the station house he asserted that he was "the United States Consul at Batavia, Java."

The next morning Hatfield told the court that he was very sorry, saying that "he drank three bottles of porter [ale] yesterday afternoon, and did not have the slightest recollection of what he did last evening."  The Cavanagh's son told the judge "that his mother was ill at home from the fright she received last night."  Hatfield was jailed for a month.  

The Cavanagh family left in 1883, and on October 16 that year, The World reported, "The new club-house of the recently organized United States Navy Club, at No. 1 Van Nest place, was thronged yesterday with blue-jackets who are on shore leave, and who are keen to appreciate the social advantage offered by the new organization."

The United States Navy Club, said the article, was the only club for enlisted men in the country.  It said, "The club-house is a four-story brick high-stoop house, and it is well furnished throughout."  Calling it "a handsome house," the New York Herald said it was "right in the heart of the 'old Greenwich village.'"  It explained that in addition to club activities, the house would be the "residence and home for enlisted men serving on board ships of the United States Navy."

It would be a short-lived venture here.  By March 1894, the club had rented and moved into a house on Sands Street in Brooklyn.  

No. 1 Van Nest Place was leased that year and again in 1897.  The latest lessee, W. D. Phillips, rented it as an income property.  His first tenant was Frank Rosevelt Starr.

Born in 1866, Starr was in the real estate brokerage business with his brother, Edward Seaman Starr.  Despite his relatively young age, Frank Starr was suffering from rheumatism and was being treated by a Dr. Ormsby.

On April 7, 1897, the doctor visited the house.  He found Starr's bedroom "full of gas and the man dead," as reported by the New York Journal and Advertiser.  The newspaper titled the article, "Gas Ends a Broker's Life."  His funeral was held in the parlor on April 9.

Starr was followed in the house by the family of Frank Williams.  The family's country home was in Richmond, Maine.  Their affluence was reflected in the wedding of their only daughter, Florence Irene, to I. Latimer Lawrence in the First Presbyterian Church on January 15, 1902.  The New York Times reported, "Over 500 guests were invited."

The property was sold at auction in November 17, 1912.  The announcement in The Sun described it as, "N.W. Cor. West 4th & Charles Sts. (Known as 1 Van Nest Place)" for sale.  It detailed it as "a 3 story and basement brick and brownstone private dwelling containing 10 rooms, 1 bath and 2 toilets."  In reporting on the sale, The New York Times commented on the confusing address, saying that the city had already given up on Van Nest Place:

The name still remains in the city directory among the list of streets, but it has been discarded by the city officials and the Tax Department, instead of recognizing the row of old-fashioned homes on the north side of Charles Street as 1 to 18 Van Nest Place, acknowledges their existence for taxable purposes as 55 to 89 Charles Street.

The owners and residents of 1 Van Nest Place, however, continued to use that address.  When Elena E. Goodale sold it to William E. Mullholland in November 21, it was still described as a "three-story dwelling."  But within two years, it had been converted to unofficial apartments.  An advertisement in The New York Times on October 5, 1923 offered three apartments.  One of them was described as "2 rooms and bath, studio, all improvements, private street entrance."  (Two entrances were carved into the West Fourth Street side.)  The two others were described: "5 rooms and bath, housekeeping and non-housekeeping; housekeeping suitable for doctor or dentist."  The term, "housekeeping," meant the apartment had a kitchen.

A subsequent alteration in 1933 removed the stoop and lowered the front entrance, now with a Greek Revival inspired frame, to below grade.  There were now four floor-through apartments in the building.

The original high stoop and entrance details of 1 Van Nest Place would have been similar to others further down the block.  The New York Times June 7, 1936

Finally, after the grumbling of local residents, letter carriers and delivery men, and the city's indifference to the name, on June 7, 1936, The New York Times reported, "The nomenclature Van Next Place will be eliminated; Charles Street incorporating same."  The corner structure was renumbered 51 Charles Street.

Among the more colorful tenants over the subsequent decades was Marion Abt Bachrach.  Starting in 1947, she was the public relations director of the Communist Party of the United States.  Like most visible Communist Party members, she was a target of the Government's campaign known commonly as the Red Scare.  In 1951, she was indicted with 20 other "second-string" Communist leaders.  However, when it was revealed that she was suffering from cancer, her trial was canceled.  

Marion Abt Bachrach's 1951 FBI mugshot.

When Marion Abt Bachrach did not die, Congress appointed a physician to examine her.  In 1955, he deemed her condition "satisfactory" to stand trial, although, according to The New York Times, "others disagreed."  She was tried in Federal Court in New York City on "charges of conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence."  Perhaps surprisingly, she was acquitted in 1956.  She was still living at 51 Charles Street on October 17, 1957 when she succumbed to cancer in the Manhattan General Hospital at the age of 57.

Bachrach's landlord had been Norma Starobin.  After owning and living in 51 Charles Street "for many years," according to The New York Times, she sold it in August 1967 for $90,000--about $845,000 today.

Although the stoop was gone, the window lintels survived in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As some point after 1940, the details of the windows were shaved off.  Otherwise, little has changed outwardly to 51 Charles Street since the 1938 conversion.

The 1840 Charles H. Macy House - 48 Charles Street

 

In 1839 a group of masons, smiths and builders worked cooperatively to erect a row of Greek Revival style homes at 48 through 56 Charles Street.  They were separately owned, yet built on the same plans.  The easternmost of the row, 48 Charles Street, was owned by smiths Samuel Cyphers and Edward Duvall.  

Like its neighbors, the house was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Three stories tall above an English basement, it was 20-feet wide.  Cyphers and Duvall apparently erected the house for rental income.  No. 48 Charles Street was initially leased to the family of merchant Nathaniel Low.

The Lows did not renew their lease and on April 6, 1841 an auction of their furnishings was held.  The announcement explained they were "giving up housekeeping."  Among the "very choice assortment of good furniture mostly made to order last year" were a "superior piano forte, pier tables, mirrors, centre tables, carpets, mantel lamps, sofas, mahogany chairs, etc. etc."

The family of importer Benaiah G. Stokes occupied the house in the mid-1840s.  By 1851, it was home to Henry A. and Jane A. Dingee.  Henry was in the coach making and "equipments" businesses at two separate locations.  

The "equipments" firm which he operated with his brother, Robert Dingee, Jr., made military accessories for the United States Army.  Following Robert's death in 1851, Henry took over the business.  On August 31, 1852, he billed the government for $1,554.25 in "ordnance, ordnance stores, and supplies."  (The amount would translate to about $63,200 in 2024.)  

Henry and Jane had a daughter, Elizabeth H., when they moved in; and in December 1854, Helen Dingee was born.  Sadly, she died six months later, on May 4, 1855.  Her funeral was held in the Charles Street house the next afternoon.

In 1863, during the Civil War, Dingee partnered with George T. Lorigan to form Dingee & Lorigan.  The firm would continue to outfit the U. S. Army--providing 18,550 carbine boxes and 20,000 carbine slings among other items that year.

By then, however, the family had been gone from 48 Charles Street for four years.  In 1859, Dingee listed it for sale for $9,000 (about $340,000 today), noting it was "3 rooms deep" and contained "two kitchens, two bathrooms," with "hot and cold water, and all other modern improvements."

The house seems to have been next operated as a boarding house.  Living here in 1860 were William H. Haskell, who operated a grocery store at 274 Bleecker; Charles F. Haskell (presumably a son) who was in the safe business; and Samuel L. Hall, an employee of William Haskell.  Isaac Homan, a carpenter; and George W. Lewis, a boot merchant, also boarded here.

By 1861 Charles C. Curtis and his wife, Charlotte A. Williston, lived here.  The house was the scene of another infant's funeral in July.  Charles and Charlotte's baby daughter Sarah Esther died on July 24.  In reporting her death, The New York Times mentioned that she was "granddaughter of O. H. Williston, Esq."  Othniel H. Williston was familiar to well-heeled New Yorkers as the proprietor of The Mansion House hotel in Syracuse, New York.

In 1863, Othniel H. Williston, presumably Charlotte's brother, also boarded here.  He had been appointed to the police department on March 27, 1858.

The Degroot and Coe families shared 48 Charles Street in 1871.  James Degroot was the superintendent of the building at 71 Broadway, and William E. Degroot made his living as a clerk.  Joseph B. Coe, who was also a clerk, worked in the County Courthouse.  In February 1874, Coe was on the ticket committee of the "Grand Dramatic Entertainment in the Aid of The Poor of the Ninth Ward" held at the Academy of Music.

The Degroot and Coe families remained through 1877.  By the mid-1880s, the house was owned by Charles Henry and Sarah Searing Bancker Macy.  Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts on May 30, 1836, Macy came to New York "at an early age," according to the New York Herald.  He went into the ice business and would be an executive with the New York City Ice Company for decades.

The couple had a daughter, Ella L. Macy.  Ella was active in society, as reflected on November 26, 1886 when The New York Times reported, "The Oxford Social Club, gave a masquerade party Wednesday evening at the house of Miss Ella Macy, No. 48 Charles-street.  Many guests were present to enjoy the dancing and a fine supper."

Ella married Robert Edgar Milligan around 1890.  The newlyweds moved into 48 Charles Street.  Born in Canada in November 1867, Milligan graduated from the New York College of Pharmacy in 1889.  He would become a director in the New York Continental Jewell Filtration Company and a member of the Down-Town Business Men's Association.

On May 25, 1891, Ella gave birth to Archibald Stewart Milligan.  Tragically, Ella died in childbirth at the age of 21.

As the century drew to a close, Charles S. and Katherine A. Nylander, possibly relatives of Charles and Sarah Macy, and Charles's unmarried sister, Emma L., moved into the house with the couple.  The Nylanders were heavily involved in real estate and Charles was the secretary of Happy Days magazine.  But bicycling was Charles's true passion.  His name repeatedly appeared in sports pages and in magazine articles for his cycling.  And as automobiles began appearing, he embraced that trend.  In 1904 Good Roads Magazine listed him as secretary of the Century Road Club of America.

Sarah S. Macy died in the house at the age of 63 on July 29, 1901.  Her estate transferred title to Charles.  

There would be three more funerals here in relatively quick succession.  On March 2, 1908, Katherine A. Nylander died, and on May 30, 1910, Charles Henry Macy died at the age of 73.  The New York Herald attributed his death to "the infirmities due to old age."  A year later, on June 21, 1911, Emma L. Nylander died at the age of 65.

Archibald S. Milligan inherited 48 Charles Street from his grandfather.  On January 1, 1912, he leased it to the National Association for the Prevention of Mendicancy and Charitable Imposture, which opened Stepping Stone House here.  A sort of half-way house, on May 23, 1912, the New-York Tribune explained:

This is not a refuge for tramps, nor a free lodging house for reformed beggars and ex-tramps.  It is a temporary home for the exceptional man who by virtue of his own ability does not belong to the vagrant type, but who is losing his grip owing to circumstances and sliding into mendicancy for want of friendly aid at the right moment.  The purpose is the same as that of the social settlements--work with the individual and not a hasty grouping of individuals into crowds, to be dealt with all alike.

Despite the group's lofty ambitions, Stepping Stone House was short-lived.  Milligan, who was now living in Kansas City, Missouri, leased the house to artist Frank Tenney Johnson and H. Ledyard Towle.  They converted it to apartments and remodeled the top floor to an artist's studio where the center opening was replaced with a large studio window that extended to the roof.  The parlor floor windows were extended nearly to the floor.

Image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Both Johnson and Towle occupied apartments.  An advertisement on June 27, 1920 described the studio:

Greenwich Village--To lease, unfurnished studio, 3 unusually large rooms, bath and kitchenette; all modern conveniences; two open fire places; $100 monthly.  H. L. Towle, 48 Charles st.

In January 1921, Archibald S. Milligan sold 48 Charles Street to Frank Tenney Johnson and his wife Vinnie F. Johnson.  H. Ledyard Towle continued to live here for at least another year.  An advertisement for a 3-room apartment in June 1921 listed the rent at $135, about $2,300 in today's money.

Frank T. Johnson was born in Iowa in 1874.  He studied at the Milwaukee School of Art and the Art Students League of New York.  Starting out as an illustrator, his work appeared in magazines like Field & Stream, Boys' Life and Harpers Weekly.  A year before buying the Charles Street house, he began traveling to the Far West where he made sketches that he completed in his studio here.  

On March 15, 1922, the New York Evening Post reported, "Mr. Frank Tenney Johnson, whose paintings of Western scenes and Indians on horseback are very popular, and Mrs. Johnson entertained a group of New Jersey Club women and their husbands Saturday afternoon, March 4, at his studio, 48 Charles Street, New York City."

Johnson's Western scenes, like Moonlight on the Ranch, popularized the style that became known as "The Johnson Moonlight Technique."

Artist Milton Herbert Bancroft lived here in 1921.  Born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1867, he was an impressionist painter of portraits, landscapes, and murals.

Another resident artist was Florence Wilde, here by 1935.  She also taught from her studio.  On March 2, 1935, the New York Evening Post reported, "The Florence Wilde Studio of Illustration is offering two scholarships--one for costume sketching and the other for textile design, each a six-month course."  The article added, "Many of Mrs. Wilde's students have found profitable work in costume sketching and textile design."

Eight months later, the New York Post titled an article, "What, No Bodies?"  It reported, "Police wearing gas masks raced to the studio apartment of Mrs. Florence Wilde at 48 Charles Street at 1 A.M. today to rescue several persons reported overcome by gas fumes.  They found no bodies.  They did find several lighted sulphur [sic] candles and a pungent odor."

The following March, Florence Wilde renewed her offer of two scholarships to her commercial illustration course.

Frank Tenney Johnson died in 1939.  The house was sold in 1941.  It continued to be home to artists, such as German-American Hugo Asbach, who was here by 1960.  That year, in February, the Lynn Kottler Galleries on East 65th Street staged a one-man show of Asbach's paintings of Captiva Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hugo Asbach's La Ronde

A renovation to 48 Charles Street completed in 1969 resulted in one apartment per floor.  Although the stoop has been remodeled and the railings replaced, the house looks much as it did following its renovation to artists studios after World War I.

many thanks to reader Frank Regan for requesting this post

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The 1869 Thomas H. Van Tine House - 47 Charles Street

 

Peter L. P. Tostevin listed his profession as mason in the Brooklyn directories during the 1860s.  He was not, however, a struggling bricklayer, but a partner in the thriving construction firm of Rabold & Tostevin.  In 1868, fellow Brooklynite James S. Bearnes purchased three building plots on the north side of Charles Street, just east of West Fourth Street, and hired Tostevin to build fashionable rowhouses on the site.  Completed in 1869, the brownstone-faced residences were handsome examples of the Italianate style.  

Like its identical neighbors, 57 Charles Street (later renumbered 47) rose three stories above an English basement.  Stone stoop railings with urn-shaped balusters rose from beefy newels to the arched, double-doored entrance.  Above it, an arched pediment sat upon scrolled brackets.  

All three homes were purchased by William Rabold in 1869, who initially rented them.  Then, in March 1872, Thomas Hartwell Van Tine purchased 57 Charles Street for $14,500--about $358,000 in 2023.

Born in New Jersey in 1820, Van Tine and his wife, the former Sarah E. Owens, had three adult children, Thomas Jr., Archibald, and Sarah Amelia.  Thomas, who was engaged in his father's business, moved into the Charles Street house with his wife, Adelaide Allen, and their three-year-old daughter Addie.

Thomas Hartwell Van Tine (original source unknown)

Like Peter L. P. Tostevin, Van Tine's profession of plumber belied his social and financial status.  He operated one of the chief plumbing firms in the city and handled significant projects, like the plumbing of several city fire stations.  

Little Addie Van Tine contracted scarlet fever in the spring of 1874.  She died in the Charles Street house at five-and-a-half-years-old on April 11, and her funeral was held in the parlor three days later.

According to The Evening Post, "The family had two trained birds of which they were very fond."  They became the target of malicious interlopers in the fall of 1874.  The family was away on October 1 when burglars pried off one of the iron grates protecting the basement windows and entered the house in broad daylight.  The Evening Post called the 3:00 break-in "one of the most daring robberies of late."  When the Van Tines returned home, they discovered that about $1,000 of "laces and other valuables" had been carried off. 

But, perhaps worse, their prized birds had been cruelly killed.  The Evening Post explained, "The burglars evidently intended at first to carry them off, and prepared a pasteboard box for that purpose.  Afterwards they changed their mind and, killing both birds, left them dead on the mantlepiece."

Sarah Owens Van Tine died on June 30, 1881.  Thomas Hartwell Van Tine survived her by almost four years.  He died on May 26, 1885 at the age of 64, and his funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

Somewhat surprisingly, considering that Thomas Jr. and his wife lived at 57 Charles Street, it was his sister Elizabeth who inherited the house.  She had married Cornelius Van Zandt on June 4, 1866.  By the mid-1880s the house was being leased to the family of Captain George Washington Gastlin of the New York City Police Department.

Born in 1835, Gastlin had joined the Police Department in 1864.  He had been with the Steamboat Squad since 1878, the station of which was at Pier A on the Hudson River.  The Sun said, "Under his management the river pirates and 'dock rats' that were a terror to boatmen and sailors who slept on their vessels along the water front were suppressed."  

Captain George Washington Gastlin, The Sun, July 6, 1890 (copyright expired)

In 1887, Gatlin purchased a "big buff-colored St. Bernard," as described by The Sun, which he named Nero.  The massive dog was a frequent visitor at the police station and the newspaper said, "Nero knew every one of the policemen at Pier A, and he didn't believe his day was complete unless he had spent a few hours with the Captain at the station."

Equally fond of the big dog was Gastlin's little granddaughter, Maggie Dorn Johnston, who was three years old when her grandfather purchased him.  The Sun said, "The Captain had trained the dog to carry the little girl on his back, and it was a common sight in Greenwich village to see Maggie sitting on a tiny saddle riding her faithful steed."

On Friday afternoon, April 19, 1889, Maggie, who was now five years old and lived nearby at 133 West 10th Street, "came around to the house to call on the Captain and her shaggy friend," according to The Sun.  "She left the door open, and Nero slipped out on a voyage of discovery."  Four days later, the St. Bernard was still missing and, said the newspaper, "Maggie is disconsolate."  No follow-up articles appeared after that, making it unclear whether Nero was ever found.

Captain Gastlin endured public humiliation in 1894 when the New York Senate's Lexow Committee held hearings on police corruption.  Gastlin earned a salary of $2,500 per year (about $83,000 by 2023 terms), which he supplanted by inexcusable means.  He was one of three supervisors accused of extorting money from their own officers.  During hearings on December 19, Office Murphy testified that he "had been paid $25 per month for 14 years for dock work" and "gave up half of this money every month to the different wardmen."  Wardman Ball admitted to taking money from the officers, and testified he passed it on to Captain Gastlin.

Gastlin was not indicted, but was forced to resign on July 5, 1890.  The Sun reported, "He will lose his salary...but his pension will enable him to live well in the country, for he will probably never live again in New York."  He died one day after his 60th birthday on October 2, 1895.

In 1941 the original doorway pediment and the stone stoop railings survived.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On September 14, 1905, Elizabeth Van Zandt sold 57 Charles Street to T. G. Patterson and his wife Mary.  They leased it to Edward Price.  

Price had arrived in New York in 1888 from his native Wales, where he was born in 1859.  He was the cashier (the accountant responsible for the cash and keeping of the books) of the Palatine Insurance Company, and then of the Northern Insurance Company.  He died at the age of 61 on January 28, 1920.  Three months later the Patterson estate sold the Charles Street house.

Since the early 19th century, the north side of one block of Charles Street--between Bleecker and West 4th Street--had been named Van Nest Place in honor of Abraham Van Nest whose sprawling country estate engulfed the area in the 18th century.  It caused immense confusion and in 1900 residents began lobbying the city to discard the name.  Finally, in 1936 Van Nest Place was renamed Charles Street, necessitating a renumbering of the houses.  No. 57 Charles Street became 47 Charles Street.

A renovation completed in 1969 resulted in a doctor's office in the basement level and one apartment each on the upper floors.  It was most likely at this time that the arched pediment and brackets above the doorway was removed, and the stone stoop railings replaced with modern iron examples.

image via apartments.com

Then, a restoration completed in 2003 returned 47 Charles Street to a single-family residence.  Period-appropriate Italianate style stoop railings were installed and the entrance enframement reproduced.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The 1869 Thomas Cudbirth House - 41 Charles Street

 

In 1869 a row of five three-story-and-basement homes was completed on the north side of Charles Street between West Fourth and Waverly Place.  Their Italianate design included molded lintels, and bracketed cornices with paneled fascias.  The double-doored entrances above the high stoops featured arched pediments that sat upon scrolled brackets.

Thomas Cudbirth, who lived one block away on Charles Street, purchased 51 Charles Street (renumbered 41 in 1936).  A prominent Greenwich Village real estate dealer and developer, he leased the house for several years.  His first tenant was Joseph R. Ferrer, a merchant who had served with the 74th Regiment of Infantry during the war.  Ferrer and his family remained until January 1873.

Cudbirth advertised the house in February 1873.  The ad read:

To Let or Lease--A new brown stone house; modern improvements; 51 Charles street or Vannest place; rent $1,650.

                                                                                    T. Cudbirth.

The mention of Vannest (or Van Nest) Place referred to the single-block section of Charles Street one block to the west.  The advertised rent was an affordable $3,500 per month by today's calculations.  

The advertisement was answered by John O. Mott, a lawyer with offices on Chambers Street.  He and his family lived here for one year before the Cudbirth family moved in.

Thomas Cudbirth owned and built houses throughout Greenwich Village.  Born in 1806, he joined the United States Navy when he was a young man.  After 15 years at sea, "during which time he suffered shipwreck more than once," according to the New York Dispatch, he returned to New York City.  The newspaper said, "at the earnest solicitation of his mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, he became a real estate agent, and for about twenty five years conducted, with success, the affairs of the large estate of Mr. Cozzens."

Cudbirth and his wife, the former Cyrena Arlen, had four adult children, Mary A., Julia, Delia, and Thomas C.  Two other children, Cyrena and Benjamin, had died.  

Cudbirth ran his real estate business from the Charles Street house, and it appears he did not totally leave his sea-faring demeanor behind him when he left the Navy.  The New York Dispatch diplomatically described him as "a frank, bluff, outspoken and just man.  Under a somewhat rough and sailor-like bearing, he wore a kindly heart."

The family's respectability had been severely tested twenty years earlier.  On April 11, 1855, the New York Herald reported that Cudbirth had raped and impregnated a servant girl in their home.  The article went on to say that he, Cyrena, and a servant, Mrs. Wiley (most likely the housekeeper) had attempted to arrange an abortion, performed by the notorious Madame Restell.  

The year after the Cudbirths moved into the Charles Street house, on October 18, 1875, Cyrena died.  It was not long before Thomas remarried.

Thomas and his new wife named Belle lived together until Cudbirth's death in the Charles Street house on July 5, 1884.  The scandal of 1855 seems to have been mostly forgotten.  In reporting his death, the New York Dispatch said, "For a long period he has been a noted figure in the Ninth Ward, and he will be missed by many of the old inhabitants, to whom he was endeared by years of association in personal, social, and business relations."

At least one of Thomas's children, Thomas C., lived on at 51 Charles Street with Belle.  The house increased its population by one when Belle married Thomas E. Penton around 1903.  After having been in the Cudbirth family for nearly four decades, Belle sold the house to Eleanora Oberinder on March 26, 1906.

It is unclear whether the Oberinder family ever lived in the house, or if Eleanora used it as a rental property.  Living here in 1914 was the erudite scholar Dr. Samuel Augustus Binion.  Born in Suwalki, Poland in April 1837, at some point he had anglicized his birth surname.  The New-York Tribune said his father, Joshua Bin Nun, had been "a savant and teacher," in Poland.  

After studying at the Universities of Breslau and Padua, and at King's College in London, Binion worked as a "reader" in the British Museum for eight years before traveling to Spain to become Superintendent of Schools in Sevilla and the Balearic Islands.  Upon arriving in America, he worked in the Peabody Museum in Baltimore where he catalogued the works on Oriental languages, and then was hired by John Hopkins University.  Following his retirement he came to New York.

Dr. Samuel Augustus Binion (original source unknown)

An author and translator, he was chiefly known for his translation of Henri Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis?.  Other books he translated were Sienkiewicz's The Knights of the Cross; With Fire and Sword: A Tale of the Past; and Pan Michael, an Historical Novel.  Dr. Binion died in the Charles Street house on January 8, 1914 at the age of 77.

Another well-educated resident of 51 Charles Street was Frank J. Hopkins.  In 1909 he was hired as a proofreader with the New York American.  While living here in 1919, Hopkins's life came to a brutal end.  On February 25, The Sun reported, "Edward Butler, motorman of a Seventh avenue subway train, felt a jar 200 feet south of the Christopher street station early yesterday and shut off his power.  Underneath the rear trucks of the first car was found the body of Frank J. Hopkins."

In 1933 the basement level was converted to a restaurant.  A large window was cut into the facade at that level.  The fact that the stoop was removed strongly suggests that the upper floors were being operated as a rooming house.

A large electric blade sign advertises the restaurant in 1941.  A small sign affixed to the former parlor floor most likely advertises rented rooms.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1936, after having caused years of confusion, the Van Nest Place block was renamed  Charles Street.  It resulted in the renumbering of the entire street, and 51 Charles Street now became 41.

The restaurant expanded into the former parlor level in 1955.  The Department of Buildings documents demanded that the upper floors "remain vacant."  That changed in 1960 when the basement was converted to one apartment and each of the upper floors remodeled to two.  Then, a renovation completed in 2016 brought the former Cudbirth house back to a single-family home.  A striking refabrication of the lost stoop and lintels was initiated at this time, returning the residence to its 1869 appearance.

photographs by the author

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The 1854 54 Charles Street

 

In 1788 Richard Amos acquired a section of the former Sir Peter Warren county estate, Greenwich.  Eight years later he had streets laid out, and in 1817 plotted out building lots.  Three of the streets were named for a relative, Christopher Charles Amos.  (Amos Street, would later become West 10th Street).  In 1839 a group of masons and builders purchased five lots on the south side of Charles Street between West Fourth and Factory Street (later renamed Waverly Place).  While they owned the plots separately, they worked in concert to create a handsome row of identical Greek Revival homes.

David Roelef Doremus was listed as a "surveyor and builder."  He and his son Cornelius David erected 74 and 76 Charles Street (later renumbered 54 and 56).  Faced in red brick above a brownstone basement, the houses were three stories tall and 24-feet-wide.  Iron stoop railings gently encircled the cast iron newels that perched upon paneled pedestals.  The entrances were typical of the style.  Heavy stone pilasters upheld a stone entablature and cornice.  Their single doors were flanked by narrow sidelights and capped by an ample transom.  The row of houses shared a continuous, delicately dentiled cornice.

Living in 74 Charles Street in the mid-1840s were John Reid, a baker, and his wife.  In the winter of 1846 Mrs. Reid was the victim of a counterfeiter.  On December 5, the New York Herald reported that "a man called Levi Marks" had been arrested the night before, charged with "passing a spurious coin" on Richard Phenix and Mrs. John Reid.

Beginning in early 1850s, the house was operated as a boarding house, home to working class tenants.  In 1851, for instance, they included shoemaker William Bishop; William M. Brown, a butcher; Oliver Houston, a carman (or delivery driver); Ernest Kearnan, who did not list a profession; and John Maxwell, who was in the "lardoil," or lard oil business.

The boarders came and went, bringing no undue attention to the house for decades.  In February 1889 Melchior Hoffman sold 74 Charles Street to William P. Zwinge for $26,000, a considerable $853,000 by 2023 conversions.  Perhaps coincidentally, the address was suddenly in the newspapers for the wrong reasons.

On April 16, 1889, boarder Michael Farrell, alias William McCormack, was arrested on suspicion of burglary.  The Evening Post reported, "In his possession were found two pawn tickets for a diamond stud and a diamond ring, valued at $300, pawned on the 25th and 26th of March."

Boarding here at the same time was Mary Quigley, who had been separated from her husband for some time.  In May that year, she found herself in a predicament--she was pregnant.  Mary faced certain ruin if her condition was found out.  A woman who had a baby fathered by a man to whom she was not married would be unable to obtain employment, would be evicted from her residence, and be openly scorned.  Desperate, she visited Dr. Charles E. Gilbert who performed an abortion.

The procedures in the 1880s were risky (at best) and illegal.  And this one did not go well.  Late on May 4, Dr. B. C. McIntyre was called to the Charles Street house where he found Mary dying.  She admitted to him that she had visited Dr. Gilbert twice and he had performed what The Evening World described as "the unlawful operation upon her."  She refused to disclose the name of the father (who would also have been in legal trouble).

Coroner Hanley was called to the house.  He took an ante mortem statement, which served as the grounds for Dr. Gilbert's arrest.  On May 6, The Sun reported that Detective Burleigh of the Charles Street police station "took Dr. Gilbert out of bed early yesterday morning and brought him before the dying woman at 3 A.M."  Now, face-to-face with the physician, Mary Quigley changed her story.  "She said that her former statement was false, and before Notary John T. Birdsall...made another statement in which she withdrew her allegations against Dr. Gilbert."  

It was not enough for Coroner Hanley, who "placed Dr. Gilbert under bail of $5,000 to insure his appearance when wanted," reported The Evening World.  The newspaper added, "He is a reputable physician of many years' practice, and, it is said, proposes to seek redress in the civil courts for the imputation cast upon him."  Mary Quigley died having protected both of the men ultimately responsible for her death.

James Maguire was 17 years old in 1892.  His mother lived in the Charles Street house, and that year he rented a spare room in a house of William Walling, a pier worker, and his wife Maggie nearby on Washington Street.  The couple had four children.  The World said, "The boarder didn't seem to have any employment in particular and idled about the house most of the time."

The World described Maguire as "a stalwart, good-looking fellow."  A few months after he arrived, Maggie informed her husband "she was tired of living with him."  He begged her to stay, but a few days later, according to The World, "the wife disappeared.  So did two of the children.  And so did Maguire.  There had been $3,000 of Walling's savings in the bank.  That was gone too."

Trouble came when the money ran out.  Maggie and James had gone to Chicago and to Boston, and frittered away Walling's life savings.  Finally Maggie, now pregnant, and James came back to New York.  Using the names Mr. and Mrs. Williams, they took a single room on West 17th Street, which they shared with three other men.  The baby was born a few days later.

With no money and a new baby, Maggie Walling's teen-aged lover turned cruel.  On April 8, 1892, The Evening World reported, "One night about three weeks ago she was heard screaming for help.  The neighbors say they heard 'Mrs. Williams's' husband beating her, and Decker [the janitor]...says that the woman was apparently beaten until the man got tired."

A neighboring roomer, Mrs. Burke, told police that her "eyes were blackened and her bosom badly bruised."  A doctor was called, "but the woman received little or no attention."  Just after midnight on April 5, an ambulance took Maggie to a hospital where she died.  Maguire promptly disappeared (as did the three other roomers), abandoning Maggie's three-year-old daughter and the infant.  (The other child had been sent back to Walling soon after the couple returned to New York.)

William Walling was unable to obtain his wife's body for burial, because she had been admitted to the hospital as Mrs. Williams.  He tracked down Maguire in his mother's rooms at 74 Charles Street.  Williams told a reporter later, that in an uncharacteristic act of decency, "He went with me to the hospital and acknowledged that he had lied, and I got the body to give it decent burial, knowing that he wouldn't."

Maguire was arrested in the Charles Street house on April 8 and was imprisoned.  Charges of murder pended the exhumation and autopsy of Maggie Walling's body.

Two of the boarders in 1894, William Hart and John McDonald, worked in the Budweiser Brewing Company.  The plant went on strike that spring and Hart and McDonald participated in a protest in front of Frank Grundy's saloon on Third Avenue at 31st Street on April 22.  The Evening World said, "a crowd of forty men congregated outside Grundy's saloon and persistently endeavored to prevent any person from entering the place."  Ten protestors were arrested, including Hart and McDonald.

As James Maguire had done, William Kelly took refuge in 74 Charles Street after a murder.  After the killing of a police officer in Albany on August 22, 1902, Kelly fled to New York and to his sister's rooms here.  Police arrived at the house on September 18 and arrested him.  The Evening World reported that Kelly said "he was an iron-worker, and that he lived in Harbor Hill, Albany.  He said that he left there about four weeks ago to to pay his sister a visit, but denied that he had had any trouble with any officer."

A tragic incident involved Archibald Robertson, a police officer who lived here, and another policeman, Jeremiah McCarthy.  Both men were off duty on September 8, 1923.  That night Robertson and his wife were on their way home.  Robertson stopped to buy a newspaper and his wife continued on.  When he got home, "she told him of having been accosted by a man who made some remarks to her," reported The Yonkers Statesman on September 10.  Back on the street, she pointed out McCarthy.  

When confronted, McCarthy produced his police shield, and Robertson followed suit.  Robertson suggested they go to the Charles Street station to settle the matter.  On the way, according to Robertson, McCarthy attempted to trip him, and he retaliated with a "heavy blow on the jaw," as described by the newspaper.  McCarthy fell backwards onto the pavement.  "As he did," said The Yonkers Statesman, "Mrs. Robertson, who had been in ill health, screamed and became hysterical.  Unmindful of McCarthy, Robertson ran to his wife and comforted her, finally taking her home because of her condition."

The following morning Robertson read in the newspaper that McCarthy had died of a fractured skull.  He turned himself in and was held in $1,000 bail in the Homicide Court.

When Richard Amos named the streets in 1796, he honored Abraham Van Nest by christening the north side of the Charles Street block between Bleecker and West Fourth Street Van Nest Place.  For decades it caused confusion and in 1928 a push began to have it renamed Charles Street.  Finally, in 1936, the name change was implemented.  It resulted in 74 Charles Street receiving the new address of 54.

While never converted to apartments, the venerable house continued to be operated as rented rooms until a renovation completed in 2008 returned 54 Charles Street to a single family residence.

photographs by the author

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The 1903 Abingdon Apartments - 25-27 Charles Street

 

A close inspection reveals that the building angles back behind the brown brick building to the right.

In March 1903, J. & I. Polstein purchased the three brownstone-faced houses at 33 through 37 Charles Street, built in 1869.  (The addresses would be renumbered in 1936).  The Polstein brothers razed the residences, which were located midblock between Waverly Place and West Fourth Streets, and hired architect George F. Pelham to design a modern apartment building on the site.  His plans, filed on March 27, 1903, estimated the cost of the six-story flat at $75,000--or just over $2.5 million in 2023 terms.

In the mid-18th century, Sir Peter Warren's nearly 300-acre summer estate had engulfed the district.  His daughter, Charlotte, married Willoughby, Earl of Abingdon.  The Polstein brothers gave a nod to Greenwich Village history by naming their building The Abingdon.  Pelham's Colonial Revival style carried out the motif.  Above a rusticated stone base, five floors of red brick were trimmed in white limestone.  The Gibbs surrounds of the second floor windows were drawn from Georgian prototypes, and the splayed lintels and scrolled keystones recalled late 18th century architecture.  

Pelham admittedly introduced gentle Beaux Arts touches--a style highly popular with apartment dwellers of the day.  The entrance door was given a French-style grill, and additional ornaments were added beside some keystones, making them frillier than an 18th century colonist would have abided.

Around the time The Abingdon was completed, real estate agent Charles C. Hickok began lobbying to have Seventh Avenue, which began at 11th Street, extended south to Varick Street.  His suggested thoroughfare would run through a portion of the building.  Two years later, the debate was still going on and may have made the owners skittish.  They sold the property that year.

The residents of The Abingdon were professional and financially comfortable.  Among them in 1907 was the De Graff family.  De Graff was an "inspector of cargoes."  Living with him and his wife was his 80-year-old mother.  

On the night of October 18, 1907, 26-year-old May De Graff was killed instantly when she fell from their apartment window.  Suicide at the time was considered shameful to the families, and the De Graffs quickly conceived a cover story.  The elder Mrs. De Graff told investigators that while she was in the kitchen, May had "fallen asleep in a rocking chair near the dining room window and toppled over the sill."  She said when she found the rocking chair empty, she looked out the window and discovered May's body.  It seems no one questioned the unlikely explanation.

S. Francis Short and his wife lived in the building at the time.  Short listed his profession as "foreman."  On March 11, 1908 he was chosen as a juryman in the trial of actor and comedian Raymond Hitchcock.  The Evening World noted that the musical comedy star faced six indictments "connecting him with young girls," including 14-year-old Helen Van Hagen.  The newspaper noted, "She will be followed on the stand by agents of the Children's Society who first worked up the charges that now involve the lanky actor."

The sensational trial went on for months before the girls' stories began to fall apart.  One by one they admitted to lying.  On March 16, 1908, for instance, the Palestine Daily Herald reported, "Flora Whiston, one of the girls alleged to have accused Raymond Hitchcock of abusing her, denied on the witness stand today that she had ever gone to Hitchcock's room."  Eventually, teenaged Hugo C. Poecks pleaded guilty to masterminding the effort to blackmail Hitchcock. S. Francis Short and his jurymen acquitted Hitchcock of all charges on June 11, 1908.  The actor had been wrongly imprisoned for nine months.

William H. Adams shared an apartment with his son, W. C. Adams at the time.  The senior Adams was an inspector at the U. S. Customs House downtown and despite his advanced age--he was 73 that year--he continued to go to work every day.   Not surprisingly, The New York Times described him as the oldest inspector at the Customs House.

In June 1908, Adams and his son incorporated the Adams Ontario Company, a real estate firm.  Sadly for William, he would not live to enjoy his new position long.  He suffered a fatal stroke in his Abingdon apartment on October 22.

A month earlier, residents had been shocked by a tragic incident.  Living here were William L. Sherwood and his wife, Mary E. Sherwood.  Mary had been in ill health, and had spent some time in a private sanitarium.  She was back at home in the Abingdon by the fall of 1908, but was seriously despondent over her condition.

On the afternoon of September 28, 1908, Mary stood on the elevated railroad platform at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue.  In the center of the shopping district known as the Ladies' Mile, the platform was crowded with female shoppers.  As a train pulled into the station, Mary threw herself onto the tracks.

The New-York Tribune reported, "The spectators shrieked and George W. Page, the motorman, made every attempt to stop the train, but in vain."  Also on the platform was Father T. F. White of St. Francis Xavier's Church.  He "sprang on to the tracks, and, while the crowd stood with bared heads, anointed her," said the article.  The Sun noted, "The body was so firmly wedged between the forward trucks of the first car that it took a wrecking crew more than half an hour to jack up the train and release the body."  Rather surprisingly today, as Mary Sherwood's body was removed to the morgue George W. Page was arrested for homicide.

In the meantime, Charles C. Hickok's lobbying to have Seventh Avenue extended had not abated.  The push gained momentum and in 1913 work began on a two-pronged project--the extension of the avenue and the construction of the 7th Avenue subway.  Like a titan-sized lawn mower, the work cut a swatch through Greenwich Village, erasing scores of buildings and leaving others with sections sheared off, their interiors exposed like a child's doll house.

On August 2, 1914, The New York Times reported, "A slice of the six-story Abingdon apartment was sawed off and the triangular portion of the building formerly adjoining to the north has been entirely walled up, giving the rear part of that structure a frontage on the new Seventh Avenue."  Originally mid-block, The Abingdon was now a corner property.  Architects deftly copied George F. Pelham's design, quite possibly salvaging elements to be reused in the reconstruction.  Assuredly the original brick, which perfectly matches the rest of the building, was reused.  The outcome was a single-bay on Seventh Avenue South, with the remainder of the building angling oddly back to the north.

Ada Beazley had an apartment in the building in 1920.  The unmarried nurse worked at the Henry Street Settlement, one of a crew who visited tenement buildings to provide medical care.  On March 8, while she treated a three-year-old with influenza on the fifth floor of 240 Spring Street, fire broke out in another apartment.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Miss Beazley grasped the child in her arms, rushed through a smoke-filled hallway to a fire escape and delivered the body to a 'human ladder' formed by several young men."  Ada Beazley was declared a hero who saved the sick toddler's life.  And she had done so in the nick of time.  The article said, "the floor on which the child lived was wrecked."

The Abingdon backed up to the rear yards of the houses on Perry Street, a condition that caused tensions in 1927.  On March 7, The New York Sun reported, "Spring is at hand and the time for cleaning up gardens is marked in the house holder's calendar.  Therefore, 32 Perry street has put up a brand new sign in its rear yard facing directly on the rear windows of Charles street."  The sign read:

Dear Charles Street--

Please DO NOT THROW Things in Our Yard.

When interviewed, residents of the Abingdon denied tossing refuse into the yards.  One said, "The yards of Perry street are very pleasing to those of us who reside in the rear apartments of Charles street, and we would never dream of disfiguring them.  We enjoy looking at the scenery supplied by our Perry street neighbors."  When the reporter pointed out that several orange peels had recently fallen into a yard behind the Abingdon, the resident came up with a reasonable explanation.  

"But why blame us?  Those orange skins are what the cat dragged in."

In 1936 Charles Street was renumbered, giving the Abingdon the new address of 25 Charles Street.  A cooperative building today, it has a total of 30 apartments.  And while the interior spaces have been altered, the exterior looks much as it did when Seventh Avenue South chopped off a good portion of its eastern end.

photographs by the author

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