The 1877 Gerken Saloon Building - 385 Sixth Avenue

 

photograph by Carole Teller

Carsten Gerken purchased the vintage building at 77 Sixth Avenue on the northwest corner of Waverley Place from George Hillen on April 14, 1873 for $38,000.  (The address would be changed to 385 in 1925, and the second "e" in Waverley would be officially dropped around 1900.)  Four years later he hired architects D. & J. Jardine to design a replacement store-and-flat building on the site.

Brothers John and David Jardine produced a four-story structure in the neo-Grec style.  Above a rusticated stone base, the red brick facade was trimmed with brownstone.  Banded stone piers that ran up the corners supported the largest of the corbels of the pressed metal cornice.  The windows sat within prim stone architraves with prominent, bracketed cornices.  The residential entrance was placed to the rear, at 135 Waverly Place.  Facing the avenue was Carsten Gerken's saloon, and a second entrance on the side street accessed its back room.

Born in Germany in 1837, Gerken ran the saloon with his brother, Johannes (who Anglicized his name to John).  They had a brother who was not involved with the business.  (The Sun said, "The brothers were sedate, rather corpulent Germans and looked enough alike to be triplets.")

Carsten and his wife, Ella, lived upstairs with one Irish servant.  Several of their initial tenants in the building were from the theater community.  Among them in 1879 were actor William Gray; Anthony J. Cannon, whose stage name was Tony Hart; and John E. Cannon, treasurer of the Theatre Comique at 514 Broadway.  (Tony Hart was half of the popular comedy team of Harrigan & Hart.  Perhaps not coincidentally, at the time they were appearing at the Theatre Comique.) 

Unlike other saloon owners throughout the city, the Gerken brothers ran their business with strict Victorian propriety and within the letter of the law.  No females were permitted into the back room and, according to The Sun, a sign in the vestibule of the rear door admonished that "no goods were sold to women to be drunk on the premises."   The newspaper added:

As a matter of fact only such women as were known to the Gerkens as respectable residents of the neighborhood could get their "growlers" filled while they waited in that little vestibule.  The sending of a child or even of a full-grown girl of doubtful discretion to the side door on a growler-filling errand was greeted with a stern rebuke from one of the brothers, and an intimation that if the family could not send better messengers for its dinner supply of beer it had better seek some other source than Gerken's.

(A "growler" was a tin bucket or pitcher used to transport beer from a saloon to one's home or work site.)

According to the newspaper, Gerken's saloon was, as well, "something of an employment agency."  If a neighbor needed help in moving a piece of heavy furniture or other such errand, he went to Gerken's.  The bootblack would be sent to a lodging house or tenement to find someone down on his luck who needed the money.  The Sun said, "That man could not get a drink in Gerken's, because they would not take the money of such a man across their bar, but they were always ready to show their good will by finding work for him."

Amazingly, the Gerken brothers would not serve alcoholics, or "drunkards," as they were called.  Once a wife appeared "with tears in her eyes asking for him," a patron was cut off forever.  "He might sit in the back room and read the newspapers or discuss affairs of State if he pleased, but if he asked for beer or whiskey he was treated as if he had put a deadly insult on the proprietors."

German saloon proprietors often operated a bier garten in the rear in the summer months.  The Gerken brothers had no backyard, so they improvised.  The Sun recalled later:

Then all the chairs in the backroom and pretty much all those in the apartments above were moved down to the sidewalk under the tree by the side door on Waverley place.  From sundown until 1 o'clock the brothers sat out there with the substantial folk of the neighborhood sipping beer and Rhine wine at the rate of about one drink an hour and getting far more out of life than do the members of some of the finest clubs.

There was never scandal surrounding the Gersten saloon, no raids on Sundays (because it was never opened after midnight on Saturday), no gambling and no unescorted or questionable women.

By the turn of the century, according to The Evening World, "The Gerkins [sic] had amassed a fortune in the liquor business and had invested most of their profits in real estate." 

February 1902 was a devastating time for the extended Gersten family.  Around February 7, the third brother was committed to a sanitarium.  The following week, on the morning of February 13, Carsten left home telling Ella he had to attend business downtown.  She said later that he "seemed in a cheerful mood."  That evening his body was found floating off Bedloe's Island.  John Gerken identified his body at the morgue.  While Ella said that his fall from the Staten Island Ferry had to have been an accident, the police called his death a suicide. 

The very next day, John Gerken "fell dead on a Second avenue car," as reported by The Sun.  The newspaper said that the shock of his brother's death "is believed to have indirectly led to John's death."  On February 14, 1902, The Evening World reported, "The bodies of the brothers now lay side by side" in a Bleecker Street funeral home.  Two days later, The Sun remarked that the third brother, "probably does not know to-day of the ends of the lives of John and Carsten."

Ella Gerken leased the saloon to Charles Neubaur.  Its sterling reputation was quickly tarnished.  On August 18, 1905, The New York Evening Post reported that a "crowd of roughs, supposed to be members of the notorious 'Paul Kelly Gang,'" had been ousted from the bar.  They returned later that night and a "free-for-all fight followed."  Policeman Francis J. Upton arrived just as the "roughs" were being put out again.  One of the gang turned his fury to the officer.  He struck Upton several times with a "brass knob."  After what The New York Evening Post described as "a hard fight," Upton subdued the tough, "using his night stick freely in doing so."

Apparently Upton's free use of his baton was severe.  The newspaper said, "The prisoner was not able to appear in court this morning."  His confederates were not happy.  Officer Upton showed Magistrate Whitman a letter he had received that morning from the Paul Kelly Gang that said, "We will lay for you."

In March 1908, Ella Gerken sold the building.  The New-York Tribune remarked, "The corner store has been occupied as a saloon for the last thirty-five years."

In 1924, during the first years of Prohibition, the Ellen A. O'Reilly estate sold the property to Sadie Goldman.  The former saloon space was transformed into a penny arcade.

On August 13, 1926, The New York Times began an article saying, "Death, injury, fire, flood and general transportation and radio paralysis were caused by a rapid succession of thunderstorms and rainstorms which swept over the metropolitan district yesterday afternoon."  Among the many incidents, said the article, was a lighting bolt that "struck in a penny arcade at 385 Sixth Avenue and caused so much excitement that some one turned in a fire alarm.  No damage was caused."

By 1935, the ground floor was home to a James Butler Grocery store.  (The James Butler Grocery Company was the second-largest grocery chain in New York.)  It was replaced by a restaurant as early as 1937.

In 1937, the facade was painted and a restaurant occupied the store space.  The Sixth Avenue elevated was in the process of being demolished.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Following the repeal of Prohibition, the space returned to selling alcohol as the Waverly Liquor Shoppe.  On the evening of April 16, 1954, the eve of Passover, Sophie Brady dropped in "to buy some wine for the holidays."  Her timing could not have been worse and she interrupted an armed robbery.  

The gunman demanded Sophie's purse, but the feisty 60-year-old fought back.  The New York Times reported, "She screamed and clung to her bag, and during the struggle the pistol was fired."  Sophie Brady was hit in the arm and she suffered a head injury in the fight.  In the meantime, the manager, Victor Cocozziello, had been forced onto the floor behind the counter.  The gunman escaped with $15 from Cocozziello's wallet and $100 from the register.  Sophie was treated at St. Vincent's Hospital.  She had saved her purse, but never got her holiday wine.

The Waverly Liquor Shoppe remained at least through the late 1960s, replaced by the Waverly Restaurant, a fixture on the Greenwich Village corner for years.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The 1867 Emilie Steinbach House - 106 East 10th Street

 

photograph by the author

In 1867, developer James Mulry completed construction of three identical homes at 106 through 110 East 10th Street on land leased from the Stuyvesant estate.  Designed by D. & J. Jardine, the brick-faced homes rose four floors above rusticated brownstone basements.  

A bit more strait-laced than many upscale Italianate-style rowhouses at the time, these were proper and restrained.  At the parlor level, where some architects placed full-height parlor windows fronted with lacy cast iron balconies, the Jardines' windows sat upon brownstone panels.  And rather than the elaborate foliate brackets and arched pediments above other Italianate-style entranceways, these houses received straightforward cornices.

More expected of the style, the brownstone lintels of the windows were capped with handsome molded cornices atop foliate brackets, and each house wore individual Italianate cornices with fussy leafy corbels.

James Mulry initially leased 106 East 10th Street to Pedro San Juan, who operated a "segar" business on East 14th Street.  Then, in 1871, Emilie (know familiarly as Emma) Steinbach, the widow of Christian Steinbach, leased the house.  Moving in with her was her adult son, Albert.  Like most of her neighbors, Emilie took in select boarders.  In 1873, for instance, William D. Nichols, an iron dealer, and a woman who called herself Madame Selby (despite her being English), boarded here.

On March 9, 1873, Madame Selby placed an unusual notice in the New York Herald:

An English lady of experience, about returning to France, where she has resided many years, would take with her several young ladies desiring a finished education in music or the fine arts, offering them every comfort and elegant society, as she is highly connected in the artistic world.  For particulars, please call from 2 to 4 P.M. or address Mme. Selby, 106 East Tenth street, New York.

Later that year, Albert Steinbach was the victim of an 18-year-old thief and presumably was forced to come home in the winter air without a coat.  On December 14, The New York Times reported that John D. Ricco had been arraigned "for stealing a coat and scarf, valued at $23, from Albert Steinback [sic], of No. 106 East Tenth street."  (The cost of the pricey garments would translate to about $625 in 2026 terms.)

Popular actor Edward Job Arnott and his wife, Emma Elizabeth Champness, were members of Wallack's Theatre troupe.  They were married in June 1874 and engaged rooms from Emilie Steinbach.  (Arnott failed to tell his bride that he had earlier abandoned his wife, also named Emma, and their two children in England in 1873.)  Theirs would not be an idyllic marriage.  On November 25, 1877, the New York Herald reported that Emma had begun divorce proceedings, charging in part that Edward "so ill-treated deponent and struck her so often again that [she] could not live with him."  Moreover, she accused him of having "carnal connection" with Rose Lyle "at divers times and places" and with other unnamed women.

The handsome leading man was a scoundrel off stage.  from the archives of The Lambs

In court, Edward Arnott coldly testified that he had never been married to Emma and "never agreed or contemplated a marriage with her."  Importantly, he said, "I was already a married man, and told her so in the early days of our acquaintance."  

Unfortunately for Emma Arnott, the judge ruled, "I must exercise my discretion by denying the present application."  Edward Arnott, while continuing his successful acting career, went on have additional bigamous marriages and scandals.

Around 1881, James Mulry leased the house to J. C. Ketcham.  The banker was highly involved in the Royal Arcanum, a fraternal organization.  On December 16, 1883, The New York Times reported on the meeting of the club at its Council Room on East 15th Street.  "At the close of the meeting a collation was provided at the house of Treasurer Ketcham, No. 106 East Tenth-street," said the article.

Ketcham and his family left in 1886, after which Mulry leased the house to Kate E. Wagner.  She sublet it to a "Mrs. Wenreth" who operated it as a boarding house.

Among her first boarders was Charles M. Plumb, the organizing secretary of The Central Committee for Protecting & Perpetuating the Separation of Church & State.  The group was formed by citizens concerned about the erosion of the Founding Fathers' principle.

Edward Arnott's messy divorce hearing had been the only taint to the respectable reputation of 106 East 10th Street until the arrest of 23-year-old Charles Deira on May 18, 1896.  At 3:00 that morning, S. P. Benedict, who lived at 61 Charles Street, awoke to see Deira standing by his bed.  The Sun reported, "Benedict demanded what he was doing there, and sprang out of bed."

"I'm in the wrong house, I guess," said Deira.  "I thought this was 61 Perry street."

Benedict spat, "I don't believe you."

"You must excuse me.  I made a mistake a block," said Deira and he rushed out of the house.  Because he was in his night clothes, Benedict did not follow.  However, the sight of a man running down Charles Street at 3:00 in the morning raised the suspicions of a policeman.  Deira was arrested and charged with attempted burglary.  The Sun said, "He entered Benedict's house by means of a skeleton key."

More than 30 years after he constructed 106 East 10th Street, James Mulry's estate sold it at auction to Frederick Henssler on January 19, 1899.  Henssler paid the equivalent of $238,000 in today's money.

 

Shortly afterward, Herman A. Fisher, his wife and daughter, rented rooms here.  Fisher was the treasurer of William Wicke & Co., a maker of cigar boxes and cigar ribbons.  On the night of November 20, 1900, Francis Dillon was walking along 164th Street in the Bronx when he came across a man lying in a vacant lot "with a bullet hole in his right temple," as reported by The New York Times.  It was 40-year-old Herman Fisher.  The New-York Tribune noted, "The police believe the man committed suicide."

The following year, resident E. C. Curtis, who was a paperhanger, experienced what could be described only as a wild ride.  He was removed from the house in an ambulance on the night of May 18, 1901, after he "became suddenly ill from kidney trouble," according to the New-York Tribune.  At the corner of 21st Street and Second Avenue, the ambulance was blocked by a lumber truck and so the driver "steered the horse on the sidewalk."  Curtis's ride to the hospital became violent.

The ambulance swung from side to side as it went up and then down the curb, and the reins broke.  The driver picked them up, and had to reach away out of the wagon to hold them.  He drove as fast as the horse could go.  The horse knew the way, and dashed through the gateway of Bellevue so fast that the traces [the straps that connected the horse to the ambulance] broke.

In December 1904, Frederick Henssler leased 106 East 10th Street to Rosetta Hertz, who continued to lease rented rooms within the house.  Although never converted to apartments, the owner was given a violation in 1937 for operating a "multiple dwelling."

Little changed on the outside, today the handsome structure is a single family home.

D. & J. Jardine's 1867 110 East 10th Street

 

photograph by the author

U.S. Senator Hamilton Fish inherited land from the estate of his mother, Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish.  On May 1, 1867, he leased the plots that would become 106 through 110 East 10th Street to developer James Mulry.  The annual rents on the 21-year land leases were $200 each--about $4,380 in 2025.  Fish included restrictive covenants in the leases that prohibited the erection of "dangerous, noxious or offensive establishments" or of tenements or "community houses."  Instead, Fish demanded that only "a good and substantial dwelling house, three or more stories high" and faced in brick or stone be built on the plots.

Mulry commissioned the architectural firm of D. and J. Jardine to design three upscale homes on the property.  Born in Scotland, brothers David and John Jardine--27 and 29 years old respectively at the time--had gone into partnership just two years earlier.  For Mulry, they produced identical, four-story homes faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Sitting upon rusticated stone basements, their Italianate-style design included segmentally arched entrances within unusual stone frames, the beefy scrolled brackets of which upheld prominent molded cornices.  The windows wore handsome molded cornices supported by carved foliate brackets.  Pressed metal cornices with leafy corbels completed the design.  Each of the houses cost Mulry $6,000 to erect--about $131,000 today.

No. 110 was leased to Elizabeth Carlyle, the widow of Edward Carlyle, who operated it as an upscale boarding house.  An advertisement offered, "Handsomely furnished rooms to let, with first class Board, for gentlemen and wife or single gentlemen, en suite or singly; terms moderate."  Elizabeth's residency was short.  By 1870, another widow, Anna M. Carroll operated the boarding house.

Among Carroll's boarders in 1871 were attorney George P. Avery, and young Julius William Russell.  Russell's permanent home was in Burlington, Vermont and he was in New York City attending Columbia College.  

An unnamed boarder was a victim of theft in 1874.  His advertisement in the New York Herald on April 16 read:

$25 Reward--If the young man who took the Violin from 110 East Tenth street will return it he will oblige the person he conversed with and receive $25 reward; no questions asked.  The violin only valued as a keepsake from a deceased father.

Widow Elizabeth Koch ran the boarding house in 1876. Among her few boarders that year were Dr. A. A. Angell; Sarah Dubois, a dressmaker; and Adolph Franosch and his wife.  Described by The New York Times as "a well-known singer in German opera," Franosch was born in Cologne, Germany in 1828.  In 1874, two years before taking rooms here, he had toured in the German Company in the role of Plunket in Martha.  The Indianapolis News called Franosch, "a marvel of power," saying, "His voice is unquestionably the finest in this if not any country.  Seldom is heard such majesty of tone combined with such correctness of execution and dramatic force."

Living here in 1882 was Madame Ivan C. Michels.  It is possible that Elizabeth Koch allowed her to use the parlor for her teaching, but most likely it was done in her rooms.  Her concise ad in the American Art Journal on February 11 that year read, "Mme. Ivan C. Michels Teaches Elocution for Pulpit, Bar and Stage."

Another boarder in 110 East 10th Street that year was Lizzie Wood, an actress who appeared on stage as Lizzie J. Mauritius.  While she was out on the morning of May 25, a man appeared at the door and identified himself as an expressman.  He told the maid that Lizzie had engaged him to remove a trunk from her rooms.  When Lizzie returned home, she realized she had been the victim of a clever ruse.  According to her, the value of the trunk and its contents was $200 (about $6,330 today).

Later that night, Patrolman James Kelly noticed John Adams taking a trunk into the house at 29 West 44th Street.  Despite the fact that trunks were routinely taken in and out of buildings, he was suspicious.  Upon opening the trunk, he discovered Lizzie Wood's items.  Adams was arrested and he confessed.

Dr. John R. Hobbie boarded here in 1885, as did Walter R. Sherman.  Sherman was estranged from his wife, Kate M.  The couple had an eight-year-old son, Walter M. Sherman.

Kate Sherman told the court of "her run-away marriage while Sherman was a student in Cornell University."  She said they were married less than three months when, "he abused me by the use of the grossest language" and physical abuse.  "It was a common thing for him to pull me by the hair and to slap me in the face."  

On May 25, 1885, Kate Sherman added new charges against her husband.  She brought witnesses to testify to "the intimacy between [Sherman] and Clara Menz, who was a servant at 110 East Tenth street."

John Emory Bryant took a room here in 1891, while his wife, the former Emma Spaulding, remained in Earlville, New York.  He had fought for the Union in the Civil War and both he and Emma had been avid abolitionists.  They had met while John, who was teaching, boarded in Emma's family's home.  Emma was a teacher of mathematics.  They were married in 1864 while he was a soldier.

On September 25, 1891, Bryant wrote to Emma, saying he was sending her $20 toward her costs to come to New York.  He directed that should she be delayed, she should telegraph him "at my boarding house, 110 East 10th Street."  The letter went on to hint of tensions between the couple.  He copied numerous scriptures that made his note sound more like a lecture.  Emma Spaulding Bryant's letters were published in 2004.  They reveal some of the conflicts within middle-class couples that were strictly guarded from the public.

Dr. Downey was boarding here on the afternoon of March 13, 1895 when he was summoned to 388 Sixth Avenue.  There he found 30-year-old Annie Lefkowitz "in a precarious condition," according to The Sun.  At 7:00 that evening, Downey went to the West 13th Street police station to report that she was "suffering from the result of a criminal operation."  The newspaper's delicately wording referred to an abortion.  Annie Lefkowitz's family physician, Dr. Robert Berlinger, had performed the procedure that morning.  The Sun reported, "Mrs. Lefkowitz is not expected to live through the night."

In October 1903, a "Mr. Williamson" and his young wife took rooms here.  In fact, Mr. Williamson was James H. Grant and his "wife" was Madeline J. Schlamp.

A relative of President Ulysses S. Grant, the New-York Tribune described James Grant as "a married man, one legged and with a wife and four children."  He worked at the New York and New Jersey Telephone Company and lived in West Orange.  Living next door was the Henry J. Schlamp family.  The Schlamps' 16-year-old daughter, Madeline, according to The Sun, was a member of the "choir of a Methodist church in their home town."  

Madeline disappeared from home in October 1903.  On hearing that her mother was dying, she returned home, but left again after the woman's death.  Henry J. Schlamp heard that she was living at 110 East 10th Street and on the night of November 25, he and Police Detective Clarence went to the house and found Madeline and John Grant together.  Grant said he merely had visited her "from motives of charity, and had obtained employment for her in this city, as she had been unable to get along at home."  Henry Schlamp said that Grant had "an hypnotic influence" over her.

Grant was charged with abduction and Madeline was arrested with disorderly conduct.  Calling her daughter "incorrigible," Schlamp told Agent Fogarty of the Children's Aid Society that he "wanted her committed to some institution."

On June 29, 1905, The City Record reported that the residents of 110 East 10th Street were "required to vacate."  The article said the building, "is dangerous to life, and is unfit for human habitation because of defects in the plumbing there."  The issue was resolved and in September that year, the estate of Hamilton Fish transferred the title of numerous properties, including the land upon which 110 East 10th Street sat, to the Hamilton Fish Corporation.

Mrs. Matthew Callahan operated the boarding house in 1908.  On February 10 that year, a reporter from The Sun interviewed her about Annie Conning.  She said that the 24-year-old had been recently working as a maid in the Chelsea Hotel.  The reporter wrote, "Mrs. Callahan said the girl had stayed in her house every once in a while when out of employment."

The reason for the journalist's visit was that early that morning the body of a woman known in the notorious Tenderloin district as "Queenie" was dumped in a gutter on Second Avenue and 8th Street.  The previous night three women, including Annie Conning (or Queenie), and three men had been "carousing," as worded by The New York Times.  The newspaper said they began in the Tenderloin and ended up in Chinatown.

At around 5:30 a.m., the group headed back northward, boarding a Second Avenue street car.  The New York Times said, "One of the men carried a bottle of champagne, unwrapped, and flourished it in the frolic indulged in by the revelers to kill time on the journey uptown."  A sleeping laborer on the car leaned on Queenie's shoulder.  One of the men took his watch and chain and one of the women, Mabel Cuzzie, took his tie pin.

Just then, the worker woke up and "sprang toward the Cuzzie woman," said The New York Times.  Both of Mabel's hands were inside her muff, which also held a pistol.  The Sun reported, "as he reached for it she stood up.  As she did so, there was a report and a flash seemed to come from the muff."  The gunshot hit Queenie in the heart, who exclaimed, "I'm shot," and fell to the floor.

The conductor stopped the car and, while around 30 shocked passengers watched, the group got off.  "Two of them picked up Queenie's limp body--it was curled up in a heap on the floor at their feet--and made for the rear door."  The article continued, "There they dropped Queenie, her head in a pile of snow and ice and her rose trimmed picture hat beside her."

The five dispersed.  One passenger jumped from the car and captured Mabel Cuzzie, holding her until Policeman Faber arrived.  Before long the other four were arrested.  Coroner  Shrady opined "that the shooting seemed to have been an accident but that it needed more investigation," reported The Sun.  It was Mrs. Callahan who identified the body at the morgue.

Dora Siegel, who lived here in 1914, experienced a terrifying incident on November 21 that year.  She told police that someone told her that she had been targeted by a gang for robbery.  In response, she placed $2,000 worth of jewelry in a safe deposit vault.

She came home at about 1:00 a.m. and noticed that her rooms were ransacked.  Suddenly, as reported by The New York Times, "six men rushed from an adjoining room and seized her."  She was tied up with a sheet from the bed.  Another tried to stuff a gag into her mouth, threatening to kill her if she cried out.  While one of the men took $40 from her bag, Dora screamed.  Policeman Poss heard her, and rushed toward the building just as the six men ran out.  Poss pursued one of them to a tenement house across the street.  He captured Frank Picony on the third floor.  The others got away.  The article said, "The thieves overlooked a $375 diamond ring in her corset."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

On November 4, 1922, the tomb of King Tutankhamun was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter.  Three months later, on February 13, 1913, The New York Times began an article saying, "The influence on women's fashion of the Tut-ankh-Amen discoveries in Egypt is expected to be so great that Hazel Slaughter, a designer of 110 East Tenth Street, will go to Egypt to study Egyptian art."  Hazel had won prizes at the textile exhibition and at the exhibitions of the Art Students' League, and now she was awarded a scholarship at the International Silk Show that enabled her trip to Egypt.

While 110 East 10th Street fulfilled Hamilton Fish's 1867 demand that it would be a "good and substantial dwelling," he most likely intended it to be a single-family home.  Ironically, it never was.  In 2014 it received a "gut renovation" that resulted in a two-family home.

The Helena and Charles McCann Mansion - 9 East 80th Street

 

Brothers David and John Jardine were partners in the prolific architectural firm D. & J. Jardine.  In 1867, they acted as developers, as well, as members of Kendall & Jardine.  That year they designed four brownstone houses on the north side of 80th Street, just east of Fifth Avenue.  No. 9, completed the following year, underwent a succession of owners over the subsequent decades.

Thirty years after the first occupant moved in, the neighborhood was changing from upper-middle class to high end.  The millionaire district, centered around Fifth Avenue in the 50s in 1867, had inched northward.  The Jardine-designed brownstone was both architecturally passe and socially inferior.  On April 28, 1899, the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that the 20-foot wide house had been sold.  Two months later, on June 30, The New York Times reported that the buyer, John C. Schawe, had commissioned Samuel Edson Gage to transform the high-stooped brownstone to a modern American basement mansion at the significant cost of $20,200--about $788,000 in 2025 terms.

Gage stripped off the brownstone facade, removed the stoop and gave the house a neo-French Renaissance front.  Above a stone base, the upper four floors (clad in yellow brick) were frosted with ornate terra cotta decorations--Corinthian pilasters encrusted with Renaissance ornamentation, and pediments topped with crockets and flanked with finials.  Each floor was defined by a molded intermediate cornice.  Gage created a unique terminal cornice by supporting it with free-standing colonnettes upon foliate scrolled brackets.

The treatment of the terminal cornice is unique and brilliant.

Hallett Allsop Borrowe and his wife, the former Anna Wheeler Corbin, purchased the remodeled house in April 1900.  Anna was the youngest daughter of railroad magnate Austin Corbin.  Her husband's life was what The New York Times described as "kaleidoscopic."

Born on April 1, 1864 into an aristocratic New York City family, he started out studying to be an artist.  He then turned to law, entering Columbia Law School, but never completing the course.  The New York Times said he then, "went abroad and mingled with the social and club life of England and France...His father's position and wealth enabled him to live a life of leisure."

A scandalous affair with Charlotte Augusta Drayton, the daughter of William and Caroline Astor and wife of J. Coleman Drayton, prompted Borrowe's father to "banish him to a residence in New Jersey," according to The New York Times.  When the Draytons went to London in 1892, Borrowe followed.  The visible romance between him and Charlotte resulted in Drayton's challenging him to a duel, what The New York Times called an "affair of honor."  That event never happened, but on April 24, 1892, Edward Fox (who was accused of being responsible for the publicity around the affair) fought Borrowe in a duel in Brussels.  The Associated Press reported that Fox's shot missed and Borrowe's pierced Fox's coat "without inflicting injury."  The duel was declared at an end.

Hallett Alsop Borrowe, passport photo 1915 (copyright expired)

Back home, Borrowe married Anna in 1896.  He joined Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, fighting in Cuba and returning home with the rank of captain.  When he and Anna moved into 9 East 80th Street, he was a partner in the realty firm of A. B. Ashforth & Co.

The Borrowes' residency would be relatively short-lived.  On November 11, 1904, The New York Times reported that they had sold 9 East 80th Street to Frank W. Woolworth, noting, "It is understood that Mr. Woolworth has bought the house for his daughter."

That daughter was Helena, Woolworth's eldest of three daughters.  The house was a wedding gift.  She and Charles Edward Francis McCann were married the previous April.  The bridegroom was a nephew of Tammany boss Richard Crocker.  An 1896 graduate of Columbia Law School, he was a partner in the legal firm of Douglas, Armitage & McCann.

Charles E. F. McCann (original source unknown).

Although it had been just four years since the mansion was remodeled, the McCanns embarked on renovations.  On January 8, 1905, the New York Herald reported that they, "are making rapid progress toward the completion of their new home, No. 9 East Eightieth street."  The article said they hoped to move in in time for two "at homes" on January 28 and February 4.

Helen Woolworth McCann (original source unknown)

McCann's marriage into the Woolworth family was professionally advantageous for him.  He would become president of the Broadway Park Place Company that owned the Woolworth Building, and upon his father-in-law's death, would serve as attorney for the estate.

 

The anticipated "at home" on January 28 would not take place.  On January 23, 1905, the New York Morning Telegraph reported on the death of McCann's cousin, Frank Crocker.  The article said, "Mr. McCann had but lately moved into his new residence at 9 East Eightieth street, and was preparing for a number of social functions."  The New York Herald reported, "On account of the sudden death of Frank H. Crocker, the invitations to the receptions which were to have been given by Mrs. C. F. McCann on January 28 and February 4 at her residence, No. 9 East Eightieth street, have been recalled."

McCann's mother, Maria Jeannette Frazer McCann, died on January 15, 1908.  Her funeral was held in the 80th Street mansion three days later.

In 1911, Frank Winfield Woolworth began construction of three adjoining mansions opposite the McCann's home.  Each would be a gift to a Woolworth daughters.  He commissioned architect Charles P. H. Gilbert, responsible for the Woolworth mansion around the corner at 990 Fifth Avenue, to design the homes.  

The McCann's new mansion, at 4 East 80th Street, was completed in 1915.  The couple did not sell No. 9, but leased it.  On November 23, that year, The New York Times reported that the McCanns had leased the house to Cornelius Tiers.  The following year, William Watson Lawrence occupied the house, and in October 1918, William Meyer leased it.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Six months later, on April 26, 1919, the Record & Guide reported that the McCanns had sold 9 East 80th Street to John Clarence Leslie and his wife, Elizabeth, for $90,000 (about $1.63 million today).

Born in North Carolina on March 17, 1865, Leslie married Elizabeth Harty (known as Bessie), in September 1893.  The Sentinel called her, "one of Charlotte's most prominent and most popular women."  The couple's daughter, Emma Ross, was 25 years old when the family purchased the house.  (A son, John, died in 1897 at the age of one.)  The family maintained a summer home on Long Island.

John C. Leslie was a partner in Cannon Mills with J. W. Cannon and Martin Glynn.  Tragically, both his partners died unexpectedly and swiftly by what was diagnosed as "angina pectoria," or heart attack.  The News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, said, "The suddenness of their deaths had preyed upon Mr. Leslie's mind, he making frequent reference to it."

In the summer of 1923, Bessie and Emma were at Lake Placid while John remained in New York.  On the morning of July 24, he started downstairs for breakfast when he suddenly felt ill.  Before a servant could get him back to his bedroom, the 58-year-old was dead.  Ironically, he had suffered the same fate as his partners.

In reporting his death, The News & Record said, "Mr. and Mrs. Leslie had also planned an elaborate wedding for their daughter, in New York, one which would have been of wide social note."

Surprisingly, the wedding was not postponed.  On November 19, The Sentinel of Winston-Salem, North Carolina reported, "A wedding claiming much prominence and distinction was that of Miss Emma Ross Leslie and Mr. John Bynum Merritt, which was celebrated last Thursday...at the Leslie home, 9 East 80th street, New York city."  The article said, "Owing to a recent bereavement in the bride's family, the wedding was a quiet affair, being attended only by relatives and a few close friends."

On June 30, 1949, The New York Times reported that the Republic of Korea had purchased 9 East 80th Street.  The article mentioned, "It was owned and occupied for the past thirty years by Mrs. Bessie H. Leslie."  

The mansion continues to be home to the Korean Consulate General.  Other than a canvas marquee, little has changed to the exterior since its massive remodeling in 1899.

photographs by the author

The 1888 G. Schirmer Building - 35 Union Square West

 

On May 1, 1834 Samuel Ruggles leased plots on what had been a section of the farm of Cornelius Tiebout Williams and began development of Union Square--an exclusive residential enclave similar to his Gramercy Park.  Ruggles paid $50 per lot and personally built brick houses on some of them; leasing the others to those who preferred to erect their own homes.  The residences would surround a fenced park with a central fountain, completed in 1842.

The Greek Revival house at 35 Union Square (the "West" would come later) was three-and-a-half stories tall above an English basement.  By 1857 its residents, the Townsend family, were accepting select boarders.  An advertisement on February 17 that year offered:

Board in Union Square--A suit of rooms on the second floor to let, together or separate, with board, in a first class private house, having the modern improvements; also a room for a gentleman; references required.  Apply at 35 Union square, Broadway side.

35 Union Square is third from left.  Abutting it to the left is the original Decker Piano Building, designed by Leopold Eidlitz.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

By the end of the Civil War, commerce had invaded the formerly exclusive residential enclave.  Wealthy Union Square residents like the Townsends moved northward, and their homes were converted for business purposes or razed and replaced.  On February 14, 1867, an advertisement appeared in the Evening Post:  "To Rent--The Extra-Large house No. 35 Union Square, with or without the stable."

It was leased to the gentlemen's furnishings business Bell Brothers.  On December 1, 1867, the New York Dispatch reported:

Nearly every description of business enterprise is gradually moving up town.  A notable instance of this is seen in the establishment at No. 35 Union square, of the celebrated clothing emporium of the Bell Brothers.  This is one of the largest and best clothing houses in the metropolis.  Gentlemen who want the finest quality of imported goods, made up in the best style, will always find here, just what will "suit" them.

Bell Brothers leased space in the upper floors.  The Methodist Missionary Society took the second floor.  In April 1869 Bell Brothers advertised the "third floor, four rooms, or will be altered as one floor...to let or lease for business purposes."

Brentano "publisher and bookseller," founded by August Brentano in 1853, occupied space by the summer of 1870, while the top floor was being leased to artist Charles Caleb Ward.  Born in Canada in 1831, he was best known for his paintings of children.  He had moved into 35 Union Square around 1868 and would remain through 1872.  

On June 24, 1870, the Evening Post reported that Ward, "at his studio, No. 35 Union Square, has just finished a charming picture telling a story of child-life."  The subject would be considered a bit disturbing by modern viewers.  The painting depicted a boy and his sister.  "The boy has accidentally wounded his foot with a small hatchet which lies at his side, and at the moment he is seated, and his sister is tenderly binding up the wound.  A little dog is at the boy's side, and is apparently sympathizing with his master on his misfortune."

Charles Caleb Ward painted his 1870 His First Appearance in Public while working here.  from the collection of the National Gallery of Art

In 1872, Allen B. Miner moved his auction gallery into the building.  The high-end items sold here were evidenced in an auction notice on December 13 that year.  It included "superb real bronze mantle sets of clocks, coupes, statuettes, vases and candelabras," and "rare and curious glassware of Venetian and Austrian make, richly engraved and decorated, of unique designs in sets and single pieces," along with a long list of other items.

The following year, the Townsends leased the building to Gustav Schirmer, "importer and publisher of music."  Born in Saxony in 1829, he had been brought to New York City by his family at the age of eight.  He partnered with B. Beer to form the music publishing house of Beer & Schirmer, and following Beer's death, the firm was renamed G. Schirmer.

As Bell Brothers had done, G. Schirmer leased space on the upper floors.  In 1876, Anna Randall Diehl moved her Educational Bureau into the building.  It was an employment agency for educators.  Her ad in August that year explained, "Engagements made for Teachers.  No charge to schools and families."  The Educational Bureau would operate from the address through 1879.

On June 9, 1888, the Record & Guide reported that Gustave Schirmer had hired the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine to remodel the building.  Costing the equivalent of nearly $79,500 in 2023, the new red brick facade was a marriage of Victorian Gothic--expressed in the alternating red and white lintels of the fourth floor--and neo-Grec styles.  The second and third floor openings were framed in limestone, and stone blocks with incised rosettes suggested capitals to the brick piers.  Limestone volutes above the fourth floor visually supported the cast metal cornice with its ambitious pediment.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The growth of G. Schirmer was such that only three years later, in 1891, it hired architect William Kuhles to design a new headquarters building at 108 East 16th Street, on the opposite side of the park.  Nevertheless, the firm continued to operate its Union Square store into the first years of the 20th century.

By the 1910s, the tenor of Union Square had changed as upscale stores--like the residents had done decades earlier--migrated uptown.  In 1913 the Metropolitan Auction Rooms operated from 35 Union Square West, but unlike the elegant bronzes and paintings sold by Allen B. Miner, it auctioned items like the "big stock of new and used desks and office furniture," it sold that year.

Also in the building was the uptown branch of the Jacob Barsky furniture store.  The office outfitter would remain at least through 1919.

New-York Tribune, September 4, 1919 (copyright expired)

The post-World War I years saw the upper floors of 35 Union Square West converted for factory work.  In 1922 the Primrose Knitting Mills was in the building, and in 1925 the perfumer Belmont was here.  That year Belmont advertised for "Canvassers--good attractive holiday propositions to solicit orders for perfumes and toilet articles; part of whole time."

In 1941 the Stewart Cafeteria opened in the ground floor.  It was supplanted three years later by Alfred Seitz's Reeds' Cafeteria, which opened on February 22, 1944.

Stewart's Cafeteria hung a three-story banner over the facade to announce its opening in 1941.  The pediment was still intact.  image vis the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Within two days of the opening of Reeds' United cafeteria, Seitz found himself entangled in a messy labor problem.   On February 25, The Sun reported that prior to opening, he had signed a contract with the C. I. O. union, "under which the union was to supply him with two cashiers, one for the morning and one for the afternoon shift."  On opening day, trouble ensued.

"But no sooner had the cafeteria opened for business than Mr. Seitz saw, to his surprise and dismay, that the place was being picketed by the Hotel and Restaurant Workers, Local 448 (A.F. of L.)," said the article.  Not wanting trouble, Seitz signed a second contract.  "That union sent him a cashier, so now the extra cashier simply sits around from noon to quitting time each day, doing nothing, according to Mr. Seitz.  But to keep a picket line away from his establishment Mr. Seitz has to pay $35 a week to the unwanted and useless cashier."

The second half of the century was unkind to Union Square.  The tenants of 35 Union Square were now industrial, like the B & C Bowling Alley Builders, here in 1960.  In the late 1960s, G & G Art Service Inc., a graphic art and photographic studio, operated from the address.  The Kans Klepper Corp, manufacturers of "folding boats," occupied most of the building in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Then, as the century drew to a close, Union Square saw a renaissance.  On June 22, 1994, The Villager announced, "Two businesses--a restaurant and a Haagen Dazs Cafe--are interested in the building that housed Klepper Folding Boats at 35 Union Square W."  The restaurant won out, and on January 1, 1995, The New York Times reported, "After a $2 million renovation, an old kayak store on Union Square will be turned into the Heartland Brewery, an American-style restaurant and pub."

Former Wall Street investment banker Jon Bloostein "was drawn to the spot by the growing vitality of the square, said the article, which added, "The establishment will feature a $250,000 microbrewery specializing in fruit ales like Belgium Lambic."

Home today to a Korean barbeque, the building's storefront has been radically modernized, and, sadly, the cornice and distinctive pediment were lost in the second half of the 20th century.  

photographs by the author

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D. & J. Jardine's 1869 84 Franklin Street

 

In 1836 Patrick Julius Bujac and Matthew L. Bujac, presumably brothers, erected a residence at 84 Franklin Street.  The upscale neighborhood was filled with similar Federal style homes occupied by merchant class families.  The Bujacs, who lived in Philadelphia, apparently built the house as an investment.  Living there until 1845 when he returned to France was merchant Anthony S. Perrot.  The elegance of the residence and the neighborhood in general was evidenced in the auction of the Perrots' furnishings on April 24, 1845.  The catalog listed "the entire splendid French furniture of a gentleman going to France."  All of the furnishings had been imported from France, including the mahogany side chairs, "two French gondole arm chairs," a "French piano forte," and mahogany center tables.  There were also bronzes of Voltaire, Rosseau, Napoleon and other historic figures; ormolu lighting fixtures, and French gilt clocks.

By the Civil War years, 84 Franklin Street was being operated as a high-end boarding house, even as commercial structures began invading the district.  Then, on September 19, 1869, the brick dwelling suffered fire damage.  Dry goods merchants Adolph and Leopold Bernheimer, whose business was located nearby at the corner of Franklin and Church Streets, purchased the house and hired D. & J. Jardine to completely remodel it into a modern commercial building.

The architect brothers raised the facade four feet, inserted a cast iron storefront, and gave the building a rusticated sandstone cladding.  Large upper floor windows allowed natural light into the loft spaces, and an overhanging Italianate metal cornice with scrolled brackets completed the design.

Samuel E. and Ferdinand E. Halle moved their tie manufacturing firm, S. E. Halle & Co., into the new building.  In 1871 the only way to present goods to potential retail customers across the nation was through traveling salesmen who would take their sample cases onto trains and visit town after town.  In December 1871, S. E. Halle & Co. was looking for "a salesman controlling a good Western and Southern trade."

On June 3, 1872, the Bernheimers sold 84 Franklin Street to Henry Neustadter for $66,000--about $1.63 million today.  He inherited S. E. Halle & Co. as a tenant, along with James L. Stevens, who operated the dry goods business of Moser & Stevens.

On the night of January 3, 1874, a burglar used what The New York Times described as "false keys," to break in to Moser & Stevens and steal 69 shawls valued at $300.  (The amount would equal about $7,950 in 2023.)  A month later, working on a tip, detectives broke into rooms on East 16th Street, which were being rented by a tailor named Alfred Jacques.  The New York Times described Jacques as "a well-known receiver of stolen goods."  There was no furniture in the front room, but an open chest had "about 100 skeleton keys, 50 lockpicks, and 15 files."  In the back room were 30 theatrical costumes, 22 cases of druggists' scales, and a sewing machine, "all recognized as stolen property."  Included in the stash of loot were three of the shawls belonging to Moser & Stevens.  

Alfred Jacques was tried on February 4, 1874 on charges of burglary and receiving stolen goods.  An indignant New York Times reported, "Although the case against the prisoner...was fully proved, the jury, to the astonishment of everybody, found him not guilty."

The building continued to house dry goods firms, like importer Thomas A. Harton & Co.; John S. Owden's linen company; and importers Eugene Despres and Richard C. Field, who occupied 84 Franklin Street in 1878.  

Typical of the tenants was Ambrose Wood, who imported British dress goods and was here by 1886.  Wood was described by The Great Metropolis of the United States that year as "prominent among the leading and most thoroughly representative members of the wholesale dry goods trade."  Born in England, he came to America in 1856 and opened his business in 1867.  The article described Wood's stock within 84 Franklin Street, using some terms completely lost on most 21st century readers:

The premises occupied are very spacious and commodious, well arranged and heavily stocked with a valuable assortment of the finest imported British dress goods, embracing a full line of black alpacas, mohairs, brilliantines, silk warp henriettas, bombazines, cashmeres, Biarritz and Italian cloths.

Perhaps the first of the tenants not involved in the dry goods industry was the umbrella factory of Goldman & Lazarus, here by 1892.  The firm routinely advertised for workers.  An ad on January 31, 1892 included a caveat that would be scoffed at by potential employees today.  "Umbrellas--Wanted, experienced hands to run covers and do own tipping; must furnish sewing machine."  Another advertisement in March 1896 sought, "Umbrellas--Experienced boys at framemaking."

The substantial operation of Goldman & Lazarus necessitated regular help-wanted ads.  In 1896 the firm employed five men, one boy under 18 years old and another under 16, 15 women, and four girls under 21 years old.  The staff worked 54 hours during the week and another nine on Saturday or Sunday.

The building was sold on December 31, 1903, and two new tenants moved in shortly thereafter.  The Philadelphia-based shirt manufacturing company Tutelman Brothers & Faggen relocated from West Broadway on February 1, 1904, the same day that Erlanger Brothers moved in.  The latter firm was a manufacturer of shirts and overalls.

Textile and apparel firms continued to occupy the building throughout the first decades of the century.  In January 1912 the newly-formed cotton commission firm of Eugene Galland & Son moved in.  The Dry Goods Guide explained, "The new firm will represent several cotton mills and will prosecute a converting business for white goods and cotton novelties."

The New York Times, October 6, 1912 (copyright expired)

Eugene Galland & Son was joined by another cotton converter, Greene, Sloane & Co., by 1919.

The Tribeca neighborhood saw tremendous change in the third quarter of the 20th century.  The tenants of industrial lofts were squeezed out as one-by-one buildings were converted for residential use and storefronts became trendy shops, galleries and restaurants.  A renovation to 84 Franklin Street completed in 1995 resulted in a commercial space at ground level and one apartment each on the upper floors.

photographs by the author

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