The 1930 1100 Park Avenue

 

Samuel Silver was well known in the pre-Depression years for erecting high-end apartment buildings.  In 1929 he organized 1100 Park Ave. Inc. to construct another at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 89th Street.  The new building would replace handsome mansions, including that of respected architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler at 1100 Park Avenue.

Silver commissioned the architectural firm of De Pace & Juster to design the structure.  Interesting (and confusingly), when the plans were filed, they listed George F. Pelham as architect.  The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 2014 Park Avenue Historic District Designation Report surmises, "it is likely his involvement was merely as architect of record."

At a time when sleek Art Deco apartment buildings were in vogue, De Pace & Juster turned to Medieval Revival.  Their 17-story and penthouse design was faced in brown brick above a three-story sandstone base.  The entrance was placed in one of three two-story Venetian arches.  Romantic, Juliette-ready balconies appear at the third floor.  The triple arch theme of the entrance is repeated at the 13th and 14th floors, above which a series of setbacks result in a delightful, asymmetrical mélange of towers, balustrades and medieval Venetian arches.

As the building neared completion on March 8, 1930, The Sun remarked, "The apartments in 1100 Park Avenue are from six to fourteen rooms in simplex and duplex style.  Owing to the large number of required set backs, many of the suites will have spacious roof garden terraces."  Despite the collapse of the Stock Market a few months earlier, millionaires were lining up to to sign leases.  On May 1, 1930, the New York Evening Post reported that Samuel Yaffe had leased a "penthouse suite," and that Harry H. Neuberger took, "a specially constructed apartment."  

Neuberger was educated at Phillips Exeter and Princeton University.  He graduated in 1917, just in time to serve with the 10th Field Artillery, 3rd Division in World War I.  He earned a Distinguished Service cross for evacuating wounded men under heavy fire in the Battle of Chateau-Thierry.  A partner in the brokerage firm of Hilson & Neuberger, he and his wife, the former Katherine Kridel, maintained a summer home, Sunnyside Farm, in Lyncroft, New Jersey.

The typical floor had four apartments.  1930 real estate brochure.

Perhaps the most celebrated resident at the time was another stockbroker, Jesse Lauriston Livermore.  Starting out as a "board boy" for PaineWebber in 1891 at the age of 14, Livermore made his first trade the following year, betting $5 on five shares of railroad stock at a bucket shop.  (Bucket shops were illegal betting operations that took bets on the rise and fall of stocks).  He quit his job at the age of 16 to trade full-time, and earned the nickname "The Boy Plunger" by traders, referring to his reckless speculation.

Livermore moved to New York City in 1900 at the age of 23.  Known for his "short positions," he made $1 million in one day during the Panic of 1907.  He would profit immensely from another panic, the Great Depression of 1929.  According to Lucinda Shen, writing in Business Insider on July 17, 2015, upon the Wall Street Crash he netted "approximately $100 million."  Morgan Housel writes in The Psychology of Money, "During one of the worst months in the history of the stock market he became one of the richest men in the world."

Jesse L. Livermore moved into 1100 Park Avenue with his third wife, singer and socialite Harriet Metz Nobel.  They had met in Vienna, Austria in 1931, the year that Livermore's second wife, former Ziegfeld Follies entertainer Dorothea Fox Wendt, filed for divorce.  The couple was married on March 28, 1933.  He was 56 and his bride was 38.  Livermore was Harriet's fifth husband.  Ironically, her last husband had hanged himself after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

As it always had, drama swirled around Livermore's life.  A scheme to kidnap him was foiled on September 22, 1933.  The New York Times reported that Federal agents looking into the murder of a young gangster on a gambling ship anchored off Long Beach, California discovered "that the killing resulted from a dispute over the plans for the kidnapping of Mr. Livermore."

Three months later, it briefly seemed a similar plot had worked.  On December 20, 1933, The New York Times reported that police confirmed, "Jesse L. Livermore, the stock market operator, of 1,100 Park Avenue, was missing and has not been seen since 3 P. M. yesterday."  The article said, "his wife, the former Mrs. A. Warren Noble, concert singer, had become alarmed because she had not received the hourly telephone calls which her husband had been in the habit of making lately while he was away from home."

"Away from home," was not far.  Livermore left 1100 Park Avenue that afternoon, telling Nina (as he called his wife) that he had an appointment at the Waldorf-Astoria.  Livermore never showed up to the appointment.  

After being gone two days, Jesse Livermore reappeared at the Park Avenue apartment.  His disappearance had been prompted by humiliation.  According to Morgan Housel, "overflowing with confidence, [he] made larger and larger bets.  He wound up far over his head, in increasing amounts of debt, and eventually lost everything in the stock market.  Broke and ashamed, he disappeared."  

Less than 24 hours after Jesse and Nina were photographed at the Stork Club, on November 27, 1940, Livermore would be dead.  Photographer Donald Arden said Livermore told him, "its the last picture you'll take [of me], because tomorrow I'm going away for a long, long time."  photo by the Associated Press.

On Thanksgiving Day 1940, Livermore shot himself in the cloakroom of The Sherry-Netherland hotel.  An eight-page suicide note to Harriet was found in his leather-bound notebook in his pocket, which said in part:

My dear Nina:  Can't help it.  Things have been bad with me.  I am tired of fighting.  Can't carry on any longer.  This is the only way out.  I am unworthy of your love.  I am a failure.  I am truly sorry, but this is the only way out for me.  Love, Laurie.

In the meantime, other initial residents of 1100 Park Avenue were the widowed Gilbert Colgate and his son, Robert Bangs Colgate.  Gilbert was the former president and chairman of the board of the Colgate Company.  A Yale graduate, he married Florence Buckingham Hall in 1888.  She died in 1920.  Highly involved in social and child welfare work, the 74-year-old died in his sleep in his apartment here on January 4, 1933.

Edward Friedman arrived in New York from his native Hungary at the age of 14.  Six years later he opened his first shoe store.  When he and his wife, the former Tillie Berkowitz, moved into 1100 Park Avenue, his shop had grown into a chain of shoe stores, Edward Friedman, Inc.  When Friedman died on June 21, 1936, he left an estate equal to about $14.3 million in 2024 terms.

Residents of 1100 Park Avenue often entertained lavishly.  On February 5, 1940, for instance, The Reporter Dispatch of White Plains, New York, reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Walter E. Ernst, of 'Sunnyridge', this City, who returned recently from Florida...entertained Saturday at their New York home at a cocktail party honoring their weekend guests, Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Gannett, of Rochester."

Gannett had recently been mentioned as a Republican candidate for President.  The Reporter Dispatch said, "Approximately 200 guests were received in the sunroom by their hosts."  The gathering included high-powered political figures and wealthy donors.  Among them were senators, congressmen, a Federal judge, the Queens Borough President, and the Republican chairman of New York County.

On November 28, 1942, The New York Times headlined an article, "Habsburg Prince Rents Apartment," and reported that Prince and Princess Francis Joseph Niklas zu Windisch-Graetz, the great-grandson of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary had signed a lease here.  

Prince Francis Joseph Windisch-Graetz, (original source unknown)

Born Franz Josef Niklas zu Windisch-Graetz, the prince married Desiree Maria von Wagner-Latour in 1937 in Vienna, Austria.  They immigrated to New York City in 1939, at which time Franz anglicized his name to Francis Joseph.  (He retained the royal title of prince, however.)  Prince Windisch-Graetz had fought against Socialism while in Austria, and now made his living as an artist.

The following year, Lawrence C. Gumbinner and his wife, the former Helen Hargrave, leased, "a duplex apartment of twelve rooms and four baths," as reported by The New York Times on September 17, 1943.  Gumbinner was the head of the Lawrence C. Gumbinner Advertising Agency, which he co-founded in 1923.  The couple's country home was in South Salem, in northern Westchester County.  

The same year, Captain T. Suffern Tailer and his wife, the former Jean Sinclair, took a terrace apartment.  The couple had homes in Southampton and Palm Beach.  The New York Times said Tailer came "from a family long associated with the financial and social life of New York and the East."  And while Tailor was, perhaps, overshadowed socially by his parents, he had won numerous golf championships as Tommy Tailer.  He was, for instance, the metropolitan champion in 1932 and 1934 and the Long Island amateur champion in 1940.

Dr. Samuel L. Scher and his wife, who lived here at the time, purchased an unusual country property in the summer of 1945.  On June 28, The Larchmont Times reported on their purchase of the Sun and Surf Club on Orienta Point outside of Mamaroneck Village.  The article said they "plan to use it for a residence."

The Schers were still living at 1100 Park Avenue in December 1962, when Dr. Scher donated a 1907 Stevens Duryea Touring "Firestone Trophy Car," and a 1910 Speedwell Raceabout Model 12-J automobile to the Rockwin Fund, Inc.  Known today as the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, it was established to "pursue economic, educational, social, ethnic, and racial equality," according to its website.

By 1995, when Myles and Fran Itkin were looking for a new home, 1100 Park Avenue had been converted to condos.  By chance, they found three contiguous apartments--two of which had once been a single suite.  The couple combined the three apartments into one sprawling unit.  The center apartment, according to Tracie Rozhon, writing in The New York Times on November 26, 1995, became the new apartment's dining room.

photo by Deansfa

De Pace & Juster's unexpected choice of medieval prototypes stands out as architectural eye candy on a thoroughfare lined with Art Deco and Renaissance Revival buildings.

non-credited photographs by the author

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The 1929 444 East 52nd Street

The 1929 agents' brochure for 444 East 52nd Street explained "the desire of the present day New Yorker for the comfort and convenience of the apartment house, coupled with his desire to avoid the vexatious traffic congestion of the metropolis, has led to the studio apartment house development along the banks of the East River, to afford far-sighted men and women the opportunity to walk to their offices and the shopping district, and thereby enjoy the convenience of going to and fro without delay and discomfort."  Indeed, the Beekman Terrace district just south of Sutton Place was rapidly filling with "splendid buildings of stone and steel," as described by the brochure.

Designed by De Pace & Juster for Babor-Comeau & Co., Inc., 444 East 52nd Street was a Jazz Age blend of Gothic and Tudor inspired styles.  The base of undressed, variegated blocks featured square-headed drip moldings over the doorways.  The stone continued up the ten stories as quoins, embracing a facade clad in rough-faced brick that simulated age.  Large stone pseudo-balconies, brick diapering and intricately-decorated piers added to the romantic charm.

For decades "studio apartment" buildings had been popular.  The term, which had little in common with the use of the term today, referred to artists' spacious apartments that included vast studio windows which provide the best light.  The northern section of No. 444 East 52nd Street held duplex and simplex studio apartments of four and six rooms.  "All studios have log-burning fire-places," noted the brochure.

The large studio windows are conspicuous in this architects' rendering.  444 East Fifty-second Street brochure.

There were also "maisonette apartments" which had private entrances onto 52nd Street.  The southern half of the building, without the northern light so important to artists, had no vast studio windows.  The only duplexes on this side were the two in the 10th floor and penthouse levels.

444 East Fifty-second Street brochure.

Among the initial residents were newlyweds William Gaston and Rosamond Pinchot, who were married in January 1928.  Born into high society Rosamond was the daughter of prominent attorney Amos Pinchot and the former Gertrude Minturn.  In 1923, at the age of 19, she and her mother were on an ocean liner when she was noticed by the producer and film director Max Reinhardt.  Most likely much to her mother's horror, he cast Rosamond in the Broadway production of The Miracle.  She played a nun who escapes from her convent.

By the time the socialite-turned-actress moved into No. 444 she had become a sort of sensation.  The newspapers called her "the loveliest woman in America."  But shortly after taking her apartment here she created an uproar among tight-laced society when it was reported she had said "uncosmeticed women [i.e., those not wearing makeup] were immodest."  Newspapers printed the outraged reactions of both men and women.  Rosamond insisted she never said it, but had merely been repeating something a friend said.

Nevertheless, she did not back down from the fact that decent women might use makeup.  "They must make up in the city.  Everything is so vivid and startling in the city that a pale, tired face is depressing."

Although the couple would have two children, William Alexander and James Pinchot, their domestic life was more than rocky.  In 1933 they separated.  Tragically, on January 24, 1938 the Beaver County Times reported "Clad in an evening gown and an expensive fur coat, Rosamond Pinchot, 32, famous actress...was found dead today in her automobile in the garage of an estate which she rented [in Old Brookville, New York]."  She had connected a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and taken her own life.

On June 12, 1930 the New York Evening Post reported that "Mrs. Boothe Brokaw has leased a large penthouse apartment at 444 East Fifty-second Street."  She had divorced her husband of seven years, millionaire George Tuttle Brokaw, a few months earlier.

Born Ann Clare Boothe, like Rosamond Pinchot she had had a theatrical career.  But now she was more focused on working for Women's Rights and suffrage.  She maintained a staff of four servants and paid $555 per month rent on the penthouse (about $8,500 in today's money).  In 1934 she poetically described the view from her terrace, published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on August 10, saying:

There are many penthouse views: the East River, sombre as a black velvet ribbon at your feet, shot with phosphorescent slivers that flake away in the wake of river craft.  The Queensborough Bridge and Hell Gate, flung like necklaces across the river's dark body...the lance of the Chrysler Building looming near, the flaming tower of the Radio Building, the golden glow of the New York Central building, the red torch of the Empire State Building, hung high above them all.

On November 23, 1935 Ann married the publisher of Time, Fortune and Life magazines, Henry Luce.  She dropped her first name, becoming Clare Boothe Luce, and would become one of the most recognized figures in American politics (she became Ambassador to Brazil in 1959), and literature (she wrote numerous journalistic pieces, war reporting, and fiction and became best known for her his play The Women in 1936).

Clare Boothe Luce and Henry Luce arrive at Idlewild Airport in 1954.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Equally well-known was Dorothy Parker, who moved into the building in January 1934.  She may have been influenced on the location (which she reportedly said was "far enough east to plant tea") by the fact that her close friend and Algonquin Round Table member, Alexander Woollcott, lived in The Beekman Campanile next door at No. 450 East 52nd Street.  

Later that year Robert Benchley introduced Dorothy to screen writer Alan Campbell.  He was 28-years old and she was 39.  Campbell would become her second husband.

15 years before moving into No. 444 East 52nd Street, Dorothy posed with members of the Algonquin Round Table.  To the right is Alexander Woollcott, who lived next door at No. 450 East 52nd.  Also seen are Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur and Harpo Marx.  original source unknown

In 1938 resident Lela E. Rogers was mortified when she read in the newspapers that she was engaged to marry FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.  Lela's daughter was motion picture star Ginger Rogers, but suddenly it was she and not the actress who was drawing press attention.  She called reporters to her apartment to try to dispel the rumor.

On June 9 the New York Post reported "With tears of embarrassment, Mrs. Lela E. Rogers...denied a published report today that she may marry J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the G-Men."  Lela wrung her hands and lamented, "Oh, dear, dear, dear, what will Edgar think?  It's just too silly for words...And what will Edgar think of me if he reads in the papers that I was supposed to have said anything of the kind."

Lillian Gish was living here in 1938 while appearing on Broadway in The Store Wagon.

While Lela Rogers was dealing with erroneous reports of her romantic life, another resident, Lillian Gish was appearing on stage in The Star Wagon.  Earlier that year she had appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Labor to lobby for proposed bill to provide a permanent Bureau of Fine Arts.  She pointed out that with the onslaught of the Depression "the theater was very hard hit...Thousands of actors were deprived of a livelihood, with the consequent loss to our country of that many precious skills."  She concluded her testimony by telling the senators, "Let me end by saying that yours is the opportunity to make a great contribution to the welfare of the country."

Before long Elliot and Elizabeth Hall Janeway moved in.  Married in 1938, the couple would have two sons, Michael and William.  Elliot was a noted economist and writer for The Nation.  His articles caught the eye of neighbor Henry R. Luce who hired him to write part-time for Fortune and Time.

In the meantime, Elizabeth was honing her writing skills as well.  She worked on her first novel, The Walsh Girls, while living here.  Her 1945 novel Daisy Kenyon was adapted to film starring Joan Crawford.

444 East 52nd Street continued to be home to well-heeled, notable residents throughout the coming decades.  In the 1960's, for instance, author and journalist for The New York Times Albert Hodges Morehead, Jr., and James A. Henderson, president of Wells Fargo and Company, lived here.

Significant facade repair is taking place in 2020.

De Pace & Juster's handsome design melds into the row of similar apartment buildings along the southern side of the block.  They constitute a time capsule of the upscale Manhattan life in the late 1920's and early '30's.

photographs by the author