The 1891 Hotel Renaissance (Columbia Club) - 4 West 43rd Street

 

photo by Anthony Bellov

Even as he and Bruce Price were designing part of David H. King Jr.'s ambitious "King's Model Houses" in Harlem, Clarence S. Luce was working on another project for the developer--an upscale residential hotel in Midtown.  As the Renaissance Hotel neared completion on August 16, 1891, The New York Times called it, "an ornament to the city" and described it as, "magnificent."

The article began saying, "One of the handsomest and most interesting buildings in the city is the new Hotel Renaissance, in West Forty-third Street, near Fifth Avenue."  The journalist described the style as "a type of the Renaissance with pronounced American interpretations."  Anticipating skyscraper technology, Luce employed an iron skeleton "and hollow terra-cotta brick, strong and light."  The article said the foundations were "like the grave of a tavern keeper's wife, 'both wide and deep.'"  

Luce faced the two-story rusticated base with marble, "calculated to reflect the general renaissance style."  It was dominated by the Caen marble entrance, designed as a double-height porch with paired columns.  

photo by Anthony Bellov

The four-story midsection was faced in tan brick and trimmed in limestone.  The windows of the fifth floor imitated Renaissance balconies, with stone balustrades and engaged columns that upheld arched, shell-filled pediments.  Extravagantly decorated terra cotta panels separated the top floor openings, and a stone balustrade sat upon the overhanging cornice.

Guests entered into a "round arched vestibule" wainscoted in "marble in beautiful tints," as described by The New York Times, and the walls were frescoed.  On either side were the reception room and a cafe, "both of them large and handsomely-decorated saloons [i.e., rooms]."  The vestibule led to the "main hall" and the courtyard, around which the principal ground floor rooms were arranged.  The courtyard featured a fountain surrounded with "growing flowers and tropical plants."  The result, said the writer, was "an effect similar to the interiors of the most celebrated structures of this class in Florence, Paris, and Madrid."  Interior balconies at the second floor were available to all residents from which to enjoy the courtyard's afternoon and evening music.

Residential hotels differed from apartment buildings in that the suites did not have kitchens.  Guests, who signed months- or years-long leases, ate in a large communal dining room, similar to an elegant restaurant.  All the amenities of a transient hotel (like maid service, for instances) were provided by the management.

Also on the ground floor were four private dining rooms, two each on either side of the courtyard.  "From the Florentine galleries that separate the private dining rooms from the court yard, the main dining room in the back of the building is reached," said the article.  The reporter deemed it, "one of the handsomest dining halls in the country."  Engulfing the entire 125-foot width of the building, it was visually broken up by "mural arches" that gave the impression of three rooms "thrown into one."  The Times said, "The ornamentation of this room is in the highest form of the frescoer's art."  (The article mentioned that King had hired "one of the best chefs of Paris.")

The walls of the first floor rooms were decorated with hand-decorated Louis XV-style panels.  The private dining room walls, however, were covered in silk and the furnishings were "in the style of the empire."  The motif was carried into the two oval elevators, which were "finished in gold and Vernis Martin, with painted panels and Louis XV decorations."

The New York Times, October 6, 1891 (copyright expired)

Each of the apartments looked onto the courtyard.  The New York Times explained, "Each suite is entered from the hall through a private vestibule, thus insuring perfect privacy for all."

The Hotel Renaissance opened on October 1, 1891.  It was patronized by some of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens, either as their permanent city residence or during the winter season.  Among them were James and Sarah Roosevelt and their son, Franklin.  In her Franklin and Eleanor, An Extraordinary Marriage, Hazel Rowley writes:

Franklin and his parents (accompanied by servants and tutors) spent time in New York City, where they had an apartment at the Renaissance Hotel, on West Forty-third Street.

C. Grayson Martin purchased the Hotel Renaissance following David H. King Jr.'s death in April 1916.  He quickly swapped it with George N. and Julius Black for the X. Y. Ranch in Colorado.  On January 17, 1917, The New York Sun said the 5,000-acre X. Y. Ranch was "one of the best known ranches in the West."  The value of the Hotel Renaissance was estimated at $1 million, or about $24.5 million in 2026.

The Black brothers closed the Hotel Renaissance and leased the property to the Columbia University Club, which had been located at Gramercy Park for more than a decade.  The club hired architects Henry F. Hornbostel, Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison, and Alger C. Gildersleeve to convert the hotel to a clubhouse.  

A year and "more than $100,000" later, almost to the day, The New York Times reported on January 27, 1918 that the renovations were completed and the opening would be celebrated by a dinner on February 7.  It said the architects had "transformed it into one of the best-equipped clubs in the Forty-second Street club centre."  

The New York Herald explained that the upper floors now contained 104 rooms "for members who wish to live at the club."  There were also exercising rooms, baths, and four squash courts on the roof.  The "immense dining room," said the article, which was designed by Hornbostel, "is in simple white stone, with great light brackets in silver and a frieze that includes some paintings of scenes of the Columbia campus as it is to-day and was in the days of Hamilton."  (The frieze was executed by muralist James M. Hewlett.)  Also on the ground floor were "lunch rooms and private dining rooms," according to the New York Herald.  A large library on the second floor could also be used for meetings.

photo by Anthony Bellov

College life throughout America was disrupted by the country's entry into World War I.  On April 5, 1918, a service flag was raised above the clubhouse and on November 10 that year, the university's president, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler and Major Herbert C. Earnshaw, Commandant of the Students' Army Training Camp, spoke here.  "The war activities of the college will be the subject," announced The New York Times.

Shortly after the end of the war another issue--Prohibition--would rock the organization.  On the "first bone-dry prohibition day," as worded by The New York Times, an announcement informed members "that afternoon tea will now be a feature of the club's gayeties."  The article then reported on a serious side effect of the law's enactment.  "Prohibition...has also made it necessary to practically double the annual dues."

Prohibition crippled the finances of hotels, clubs and restaurants.  The condition was no doubt a major factor in the club's decision to alter the ground floor to provide additional income.  On October 1, 1922, the New York Herald reported, "The Columbia University Club will install stores in the club property...All but 25 of the 125 feet of frontage of their building will be changed on the grade floor into business use."  The practical renovation unfortunately greatly decimated Luce's Italian palazzo design.

Over the years, the Columbia University Club was home to distinguished alumni.  Among them were prominent architect Henry Rutgers Marshall; poet, novelist and editor Henry Morton Robinson; and retired Brigadier General Rodney Hamilton Smith.

One of the most colorful residents was William Cullen Bryant Kemp, described on the Columbia campus as the "perpetual student."  As a young man, Kemp was attending Columbia when his uncle left him $2,500 a year "as long as he remained at school."  (The income would equal about $50,000 a year today.)  He took the wording seriously and earned his first degree, a Bachelor of Arts, in 1868.  He continued to matriculate at Columbia, earning a list of degrees that included A.M.,  M.D.,  LL.M., LL.B, Ph.D., C.E., E.E., Mechanical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Engineering, and a B.S.  Kemp was living here on February 3, 1929 when he died at the age of 79.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

In 1922, although Prohibition was still in effect, the Columbia University Club hired Irish-born Michael J. Dunne as its head bartender (presumably dispensing sodas, iced tea and such).  Although his only education was from an Irish primary school, he was a voracious reader.  The New York Times remarked that he, "could converse on a variety of topics with the many men of distinction who patronized his bar."

The members called Dunne "Serjeant," the title bestowed only on the highest class of barristers in England.  In 1960, author Henry Morton Robinson presided over a "large gathering in the club," as described by The New York Times, during which Dunne received the degree of D.D.L.," Doctor of Delectable Libations, and a scroll.

The following year, Dunn visited his birthplace, Engfield, County Meath, Ireland.  On his trip he became ill.  He made it back home before dying at the age of 71 on August 15, 1961.  He had held his position at the club for 39 years.

On February 13, 1973, the club's board of governors voted unanimously to sell the 43rd Street building.  John Reeves, the group's president, explained that the maintenance "had become too expensive for the needs of the 1,500 members."  The club moved into the Princeton Club at 15 West 43rd Street.

The former Columbia University Club building sat vacant for slightly more than two years before a buyer was found.  On May 7, 1975, The New York Times reported, "The Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church has purchased the former Columbia University Club building at 4 West 43d Street for use as its American headquarters."  The church had paid $1.2 million (about $7 million today) for the property.  A spokesperson said, "the upper floors would be used to house about 50 staff members and their families.

photo by Anthony Bellov

The Holy Spirit Association-Unification of World Christianity continues to use the building for its headquarters.  It, additionally, offers rental offices to non-profit organizations, and large spaces for events.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The Alan L. Dingle House - 245 West 138th Street

 

photograph by Mark Satlof

In the summer of 1890, developer David H. King Jr. embarked on what the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide said was "One of the most important building operations ever undertaken in this city."  Called the King's Model Houses, his ambitious project of homes "of a first-class character" would engulf the  entire block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues (today's Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, respectively) and 138th and 139th Streets, as well as the south side of  138th Street between the same avenues.

Architects Bruce Price and Clarence S. Luce worked together on the design.  Faced in beige brick and richly trimmed in white terra cotta, the 17-foot-wide homes were three stories tall above English basements.  Their neo-Georgian design featured a single-doored arched entrance that sprouted a dramatic, elongated keystone.  The splayed lintel of the parlor window was composed of alternating, foliate terra cotta sections, matched by smaller versions above all but one of the second story openings.  The exception, at the second floor, was crowned by a lintel in the form of a fasces, and an arched panel with a wreath and garlands.  Above it all was a brick parapet with balustraded openings.  The New York World pointed out that the residences would surround "a great court in the centre of the block."

The houses engulfed a courtyard.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, April 9, 1892.  image courtesy of the Office of Metropolitan History.

In May 1894 David King sold 245 West 138th Street to Henry W. Harwood.  He and his family remained here for 16 years, selling the house in May 1910 to George H. Walker.  It would not be the last time Harwood held title to the property, however.

Henry Harwood supplied the mortgage to Walker.  In June 1917 he was forced to foreclose, and a month later sold 234 West 138th Street to Chauncey O. Middlebrooke.  That transaction did not work out well, either.  The following year Middlebrooke sold the residence back to Henry W. Harwood.

Eight years after he had first sold his former home, Harwood saw the last of it.  It was purchased on August 3, 1918 by Isabel Mackin, starting a game of real estate hot potato.  Macklin resold it three days later to C. Le Roy Butler, who quickly turned it over it to Ernest and Frederica Remaely.  They left in 1920 after purchasing a home nearby on Edgecombe Avenue and 138th Street.

photograph by Mark Satlof

Finally, 245 West 138th Street had a long-term owner in Cecilia G. Dingle and her family.  Almost certainly, her sons, attorneys John Gordon and Alan L. Dingle, purchased the property for her.  The family had come to New York City from their native Savannah, Georgia.

The West 138th Street house was well-populated.  Living with Cecilia were both sons, along with J. Gordon's wife and baby boy, and Cecilia's daughter, Clinton.  Clinton taught in the public schools.  All three of the Dingle siblings were well educated.  J. Gordon and Alan had graduated from Howard University, and Clinton from Atlanta University--a highly unusual achievement for a Black woman at the time.

The brothers' legal office A. L. & J. G. Dingle was nearby at 200 West 135th Street.  The firm quickly became involved in Harlem issues.  On February 2, 1926, for instance, a 14-year-old Black girl was trapped and assaulted in a barn in the Bronx by ten white men.  The men were arrested and each pleaded not guilty.

The Report of the Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. that month noted that the victim "is in a very critical condition at Metropolitan Hospital on Welfare Island" and "the girl is destitute."  It said:

The National Office has retained Alan L. Dingle, a capable young attorney, who has been instructed to follow the case through for the N.A.A.C.P. both the legal side and the welfare end, and to take such steps as are advisable.  He has also been instructed to visit the girl, to talk with the hospital authorities, and to secure the girl's statement to be used in the event of her death.

In the meantime, the Dingle women made the house a social center.  On March 1, 1930, The New York Age reported, "On Washington's Birthday, February 22, Miss Clinton Dingle of 245 West 138th street, entertained at a luncheon and bridge.  Luncheon served at 3 o'clock after which bridge was in order."

John Gordon Dingle, Howard Academy Year Book 1918, (copyright expired)

J. Gordon Dingle suffered from asthma and was under the care of the family physician, Thomas H. Amos.  He seemed perfectly healthy at the office on January 21, but the following morning he died at the age of 39.  The New York Age said the asthma "finally weakened his heart."

Alan L. Dingle continued the legal practice he had begun with his brother.  Among his private clients were poet Langston Hughes and the estate of Madam C. J. Walker.  His prominence would result in Geraldine R. Segal's saying of him

in her 1983 book Blacks in the Law, "He has sometimes been referred to as the dean of the black bar of Manhattan."

Dingle's involvement in the Harlem community went beyond his legal practice.  He was President of the Harlem Lawyers' Association, Chairman of the Harlem Y.M.C.A., and upon America's entry into World War II became chairman of the 125th Street Rationing Board.

It appears that J. Gordon's widow died before 1940.  Living at 245 West 138th Street that year were Cecilia, Alan, Clinton, and J. Gordon's 15-year-old son, Gordon.

Alan L. Dingle The New York Age, December 23, 1944

Alan L. Dingle was 37 years old that year, and so the expectations that he would marry were few.  But then, on December 23, 1944, The New York Age reported, "Thursday evening, Atty. Alan Dingle, one of Harlem's prominent lawyers, became a benedict."  (The term, rarely used today, refers to a long-term bachelor who finally marries.)  He had married Ethel A. Gardner, a claims adjuster in the Brooklyn Post Office.  The article noted that the newlyweds would live at 211 West 149th Street.

It is unclear how long Cecilia and Clinton remained at 245 West 138th Street.  Unlike many of the homes along the block during the 20th century, it was never converted to apartments and remains a single family residence.

many thanks to reader Mark Satklof for requesting this post

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The Fletcher Henderson House - 228 West 139th Street

 

On August 16, 1890 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported on what it described as "One of the most important building operations ever undertaken in this city."  Developer David H. King, Jr. had broken ground for an ambitious project of houses "of a first-class character" that would engulf the  entire block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues (today's Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, respectively) and 138th and 139th Streets, as well as the south side of  138th Street between the same avenues.  An interesting aspect of what were called the King's Model Houses was that the developer had hired three architects--Bruce Price and Clarence S. Luce worked together on the full block, while James Brown Lord designed the homes on the south side of 138th Street.

Five months later, on January 27, 1891, the Record & Guide reported that King had expanded the project, writing that he "intends to build another block just north of the present block he is improving on 137th and 138th [sic] streets, 7th and 8th avenues."  The new portion, engulfing the northern blockfront of 139th Street, would follow the same plan as the others and be designed by McKim, Mead & White.

The block of homes designed by Bruce Price and Clarence S. Luce were a creative take on the neo-Georgian style.  The World explained, "These houses form a whole block...There is a great court in the centre of the block."  Faced in beige brick and richly trimmed in white terra cotta, the 17-foot-wide homes were three stories tall above English basements.  

Like its neighbors, 228 West 139th Street featured a single-doored arched entrance that sprouted a dramatic, elongated keystone.  The splayed lintel of the parlor window was composed of alternating, foliate terra cotta sections, matched by smaller versions above all but one of the second story openings.  The exception, at the second floor, was crowned by a lintel in the form of a fasces, and an arched panel with a wreath and garlands.  Above it all was a brick parapet with balustraded openings.

Elaborate terra cotta elements distinguished the houses.

The block filled with professional families and No. 228 West 139th Street became home to the Joseph Clark Robinson family.  Robinson and his wife, the former Mary Frances Cramer (known familiarly as Fannie) had three children, Mary Edith, Alice Nelson, and Clarence Cramer.

Joseph Robinson was listed in city directories as a clerk--a somewhat nebulous term that ranged from an office worker to a highly responsible position within a bank or corporation.   When the family moved into the 139th Street house, Clarence, who was just 12-years-old, was already enrolled in the "Sub-Freshman" scientific course at the College of the City of New York.

On June 14, 1896, The World began an article saying, "The entire upper west side of the city is in a state of alarm, because of a daring robbery carried out yesterday afternoon in one of its most aristocratic sections."  The article continued:

The scene of the robbery was the elegant home of Henry [sic] C. Robinson, dry-goods merchant in Worth street, in one of the King model houses, No. 228 West One Hundred and thirty-ninth street.

Six months earlier the Robinsons had hired a servant, Johanna Herran, described by The Sun as "a German girl, about twenty years old."  On Saturday afternoon, June 13, "Mr. Robinson and his entire family were at the Sunday school picnic of the Mt. Morris Baptist Church, and the servant was alone in the house," according to the article.  The reporter said that around 2:00 "two rough-looking men rang the bell."

The World wrote, "'We're from the gas company,' said one of the men, ' and want to examine the gas meter.'"  Johanna told them the family was away and they should come back another day.  

"We can't waste time coming back," he replied.  "We're bound to attend to the meter now."  The World said his manner was authoritative and the fact that the men carried notebooks convinced the servant to admit them.  She took them to the cellar where one of the men grabbed her by the throat and forced her face-first onto the concrete floor.  At this point the second man sat on her back.  He stuffed a gag which he had fashioned from a handkerchief and a small piece of kindling into her mouth and secured it.  Johanna's arms were bound behind her back with another handkerchief, and her legs were tied with twine.  The World reported, "This done, the poor girl, who thought she was to be murdered, was left lying face downward on the cold concrete.  Her face had been bruised on the floor and her nose was bleeding."

At 4:00 the family returned home.  When no one answered the doorbell, they used their key to enter.  The Sun reported, "The house was in confusion, and a glance into the dining room showed that the thieves had made off with the silver."  Fannie Robinson called to Clarence Andrews, the 16-year-old son of Police Commissioner Avery Andrews, who was in his yard directly behind theirs.  The teen jumped the fence and helped in the search for the burglars, still thought to be in the house.

Young Andrews took a lantern to the cellar.  "There he found the servant, still bound and in a half-fainting condition," wrote

The Sun.  "Blood was oozing from her nose and mouth."  Clarence Andrews ran to the corner and found Policeman Thornton.  He and other officers arrived at the house and took Johanna's statement.  Afterward she went to bed, "suffering from the severe nervous shock."

According to The World, the burglars had nearly wrecked the house:

Everything was turned topsy-turvy.  Articles of clothing were strewn from first floor to garret.  All the drawers had been opened out and the contents dumped on the floor.  Mattresses were taken off of beds, and even carpets were torn up.  Much of the wreckage appeared to have been committed solely in a spirit of vandalism.

The thieves had made off with jewelry and silverware valued at "many thousands of dollars," according to The World.  As it turned out, Johanna was fortunate.  Two days later, Dr. Lewald, who had attended her, said, "If she had remained an hour longer with the gag in her mouth, she would be dead.  Fright and suffocation would have done the work."

Fannie came from an old New York family.  On February 8, 1897 The New York Press reported that she hosted a "whist afternoon" for The National Society of New England.

Around the turn of the century, the Robinson family left 139th Street.  Owned by an "E. Hamilton," it was leased in 1903 to the Jacob family.  On a single day, June 19, 1905, the New York Herald announced the engagements of sisters Jennie and Birdie Jacob--Jennie to Alfred Bleyer and Birdie to Morris Israel.

Living here in 1907 was salesman Solomon Piser.  He and a friend attended a crap game in the Bennett Building on Ann Street on Friday night, May 10 that year.  The room where the illegal game took place had been raided by police just a month earlier.  According to Piser, he and his friend "started a friendly crap game there" with another salesman named Louis Bloom and his friend.  Bloom was down $150 when Piser's friend briefly walked out of the room.  Piser told police, "Then the other two seized him," threw him to the floor and took $343 from his pocket and fled.  It was a significant theft--equal to more than $10,000 in 2023 money.

Despite having been involved in illegal gambling, Piser went to the police.  Louis Bloom was arrested at his house the next night.  "It was my money and I took it.  That's all," he told the arresting officers.  He refused to identify his friend.

In the post World War I years, the neighborhood was changing as Manhattan's Black community migrated northward.  A significant number of Black musicians--Eubie Blake, W. C. Handy, Billie Holiday and Noble Sissle among them--moved into the King's Model Houses, now known as Strivers' Row.

In 1924 pianist, orchestra leader, arranger and composer Fletcher Henderson and his wife Leora purchased 228 West 139th Street.  Born in 1897, Henderson would become one of the most prolific and influential Black musical arrangers in jazz history.

The year he and Leora moved into 228 West 139th Street, his band became the house band at the Club Alabam on West 44th Street.  Then, in July 1924 he landed what was intended to be temporary engagement at the Roseland Ballroom.  The reception by patrons was such that in October the orchestra was rebooked, now with Louis Armstrong in the group.  It was soon known as the best Black band in New York City.  Other members of the orchestra were Charlie Greene, Charlie Dixon, Buster Bailey and Elmer Chalmers.  By April 1925, The New York Age referred to the group as "Fletcher Henderson and his Roseland Orchestra."

Given little credit today, Leora was an important part of the Henderson Orchestra.  A trumpeter, music copyist, and arranger, she also handled much of the business end.  She organized tours, arranged rehearsals and handled other details.

This photo of Fletcher Henderson was taken in 1926, two years after he purchased 228 West 139th Street.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In April 1928 Fletcher's group appeared at the Lafayette Theatre in the revue Jazz Fantasy.   In reporting on the opening, the critic from The New York Age said in part:

There comes a time in every reviewer's life when the English language fails him in his efforts to do justice to a particularly inspiring show...And the trouble arises from the fact that the greatest of all bands--Fletcher Henderson's Roseland Orchestra--weaves such an entrancing spell about the revue that one feels as if he were treading on air and cannot adequately describe his feelings.

The Hendersons opened their home to musicians from time to time.  In his 1991 book Boy Meets Horn, jazz cornetist Rex Stewart wrote that shortly after Henderson asked him to join the band permanently, "both he and Miss Lee insisted that I come back to live with them at 228 West 139th Street."  He added elsewhere in the book, "Later I found out that Miss Lee (as we called Mrs. Henderson) had written my mother in Washington, telling her that she would keep an eye on me.  This she did, as much as possible."

And in 1934 saxophonist Lester "Prez" Young lived with the couple.  In this 1990 book The Imperfect Art, Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture, Ted Gioia quote Young saying, "I was rooming at the Henderson's house, and Leora Henderson would wake me early in the morning and play [Coleman] Hawkins' records for me so I could play like he did."

In the meantime, the West 139th Street house was occasionally the scene of entertaining.  On August 22, 1931, for instance, The New York Age announced, "Miss Dorothy Phillips of Boston will visit her cousin, Mrs. Fletcher Henderson, 228 West 139th street."  And the following year, on May 21, the same newspaper wrote, "More than a hundred graduates of Atlanta University, former students and friends, attended a reception at the home of their fellow-alumnus Fletcher Henderson and Mrs. Henderson, 228 West 139th Street, New York City, on Sunday afternoon, May 15."

By 1937 the Hendersons had left 228 West 139th Street.  It was operated as a rooming house for decades.  Never converted to apartments, it is once again a single-family home.

photographs by the author

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The Alpha Phi Alpha House - 203 West 138th Street

 

Vertner Woodson Tandy entered Tuskegee Institute to study architecture in 1904.  A year later he transferred to Cornell University.  There he and seven other students established Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity on December 4, 1906, to promote a bond and fellowship among Black collegians.  It was the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity especially established for Black men.

Upon graduation, Tandy became the first African American registered architect in the State of New York, and the first Black architect to gain membership into the American Institute of Architects.  In 1919 he and his wife, Sadie, moved onto West 139th Street, in a section of homes built in 1891 as the King's Model Houses. 

At the time, Louis C. Jacob lived a block away, at 203 West 138th Street.  This block, like the one onto which the Tandys moved, was developed by David H. King, Jr.  An extension of King's ambitious project, these homes were designed by architects Bruce Price and Clarence S. Luce in a creative take on the neo-Georgian style.  

203 West 138th Street is at the far right.  photograph by Beyond My Ken

Like its neighbors, the Jacob house was face in beige brick and richly trimmed in white terra cotta.  Three stories tall above an English basement, its single-doored arched entrance sprouted a dramatic, elongated keystone.  The splayed lintel of the parlor window was composed of alternating, foliate terra cotta sections, matched by smaller versions above all but one of the second story openings.  The exception, at the second floor, was crowned by a lintel in the form of a fasces, and an arched panel with a wreath and garlands.  Above it all was a brick parapet with balustraded openings.

In 1923 the Eta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha acquired the Louis C. Jacob house.  The branch of the fraternity founded in part by its now-neighbor, Vertner Woodson Tandy, had been established on June 5, 1909 on the campus of Columbia University.  The chapter was known as "The Jewel."

On December 29, 1923, The New York Age reported:

Eta Chapter of this city holds a very important position in the organization, having been awarded the 'McGhee Cup' for efficiency and progress at the last convention in St. Louis, Mo.  This year it has also made single progress as evinced in the securing of the beautiful home at 203 West 138th street, as the Chapter House.

In 1926 the chapter initiated a series of meetings in the house to "present prominent people to residents of the community," as explained by The New York Age on April 24.  The first to speak here was W. P. Beazell, managing editor of The New York World, on April 23.  The newspaper noted, "Well-known men and women of the race were in attendance."  Perhaps as interesting as Beazell's speech about current-day wages, was Ralph E. Mizelle's short talk.  The president of the Eta Chapter, he told the audience about the "go to high school and college" movement fostered by Alpha Phi Alpha.

As was the case with almost every fraternity chapter house, to help with finances, rooms were rented on the upper floors to members, very often alumni.  Living here at the time of Beazell's speech was Claude Thurston Ferebee.  (He had been elected the chapter's secretary in January that year.)  Ferebee had entered Columbia's dental school in 1924.  An all-around athlete, he was also a member of the French Club, the Dramatics Club and the NAACP.

While living here, Ferebee met Dorothy Boulding, a 1924 graduate of the Tufts University School of Medicine.  The couple was married in 1928, a few months before Ferebee graduated as a doctor of dental surgery on June 4, 1929.  Ferebee joined the staff of Howard University's dental program, and his wife became a professor in the school's medical school.  Dorothy Boulding Ferebee would go on be a member of the executive board of UNICEF, of President John F. Kennedy's Council for Food for Peace, and the President's Children and Youth Council.

photograph by James Van Der Zee

Alumnus Dr. I. A. McGowan broke racial barriers in 1926 while living here.  On May 1 that year The New York Age began an article saying, "The fight to have colored internes [sic] named for duty at Harlem Hospital has at last been won."  The hospital had barred Black interns until the arrival of a new superintendent, Dr. Rudolph Rapp, in March.  Neither Rapp nor McGowan was naïve about the challenges the intern would face.  Rapp told reporters that McGowan "would be given every opportunity to make good, and that he would be protected in every way possible from any attempt to subject him to unfair or prejudicial conditions because of his color."

The nation and, perhaps, Blacks in particular, were divided on the issue of Marcus Garvey's incarceration on mail fraud charges in connection with his Black Star Line of ships.  In March 1927 a reporter from The Daily Worker interviewed an Alpha Phi Alpha member, A. M. Smith, in the West 138th Street house.  Smith was unsympathetic, saying "The government was justified in imprisoning Mr. Garvey for fraud."  A fraternity brother who quite possibly did not agree was Clarence Benjamin Curley.  He had been the general accountant and secretary for Garvey's Black Star Line.

Within a year of Smith's interview, Curley and his wife, Alma Zola Duncan, purchased 203 West 138th Street.  Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Curley had helped lead the movement to establish the Black officers' training camp at Des Moines, Iowa during the war.  He received his masters degree from New York University in 1922.  The year that he and Alma moved into the 138th Street house, he founded the National Negro Fraternal Association, a life insurance firm.  On August 18, 1928, The New York Age noted, "There are some strong organizations of his kind among the other races, but this is the first among Negroes in the State."  The article said that "since this is a New York institution, [it] makes Mr. Curley's effort a valuable contribution to the business awakening in Harlem."  Curley ran the operation from the 138th Street house.

C. Benjamin Curley, The Crisis 1939

Within a few months Curley established the People's Credit Union here, as well.  It was the only Black-owned financial institution in New York City chartered by the State, according to Negro World in 1932.

While his family (he and Alma had four children) remained in the upper floors, in 1935 Curley leased the basement and parlor levels of the house to Lorenzo "Lonnie" Debman.  On February 9, The New York Age reported that the "progressive young businessman" had established "an up-to-date funeral home at 203 West 138th street."

The New York Age, May 4, 1935

The Curley family remained in the house at least through 1942.  By now Clarence Benjamin Curley had made an enormous impact on Harlem and the Black community at large.  He had been greatly involved in the Colored Merchants' Association and in 1930 he and Alma established Rainbow's End, the first summer camp for Blacks in New Jersey.

Another influential figure in the Black community was Charles Seifert.  Born in Barbados in 1871, his father was a plantation overseer.  As a child Seifert read his father's books on African history, most of them written before slavery.  In 1910 he dedicated his life's work to preserving African American history.  Working as a contractor, he bought books, manuscripts and other documents, eventually compiling what he named the Ethiopian School of Research History.  By the time of his death in 1949, his library included thousands of volumes.  (Reportedly Marcus Garvey had accessed Seifert's library so intensely that for a time he moved into the Seiferts' home.)

Soon after his death, Seifert's widow, Goldie, moved the Charles C. Seifert Research Library into 203 West 138th Street.  On June 10, 1950, The New York Age reported "the Charles C. Seifert Historical Research Association, Inc., held open house at the Charles C. Seifert Library, 203 West 138th Street, New York City, recently."  The article said, "An overflow crowd of former students, friends and persons interested in research gathered to pay homage to the life work and character of the late Charles C. Seifert, research historian and founder of the library."

The library was the scene of lectures and other educational functions.  On October 7, 1950, for instance, The New York Age reported it hosted Dr. William Leo Hansberry, "eminent Howard University archaeologist and anthropologist, in a series of seven lectures of Africa beginning Saturday, October 7th, and continuing every other Saturday until February, 1951."  The article added, "The Seifert Research Library is as extensive in the books, pamphlets and materials it contains as the original Schomburg Collection, now part of the New York Public Library."

By 1973 the Negro Book Club, Inc. was headquartered at 203 West 138th Street.  The Black periodical News Illustrated was published from the address as the time.

A renovation completed in 2021 returned the house--so important to Black history in New York City--to a single family home.  At the time the facade and its terra cotta decorations were restored.

photograph by the author

many thanks to Mark Satlof for his valuable input

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