The 1926 Springs Building - 15 West 47th Street

 

Even before Eli Baxter Springs arrived in New York City from the Deep South, he had had a fascinating life and career.  He was born at his grandfather's Georgia home, Cornucopia Plantation, on February 1, 1852, to Colonel Andrew Baxter Springs, who served in the Confederate Army.  As a young man, Springs founded a small grocery in Charlotte, North Carolina that grew to be one of the largest retail grocery firms in the state.  He turned to railroads, eventually becoming president of the Atlantic, Tennessee & Ohio Railroad and director in the Southern Railway Company.

Eli Baxter Springs, from The Lineage and Tradition of the Family of John Springs III (copyright expired)

He went on to be a substantial cotton grower and trader, a director of the Charlotte Construction Company, and Mayor of Charlotte from 1897 to 1899.  Never married, he relocated to New York in 1903 and became a partner in the cotton brokerage firm of J. H. Parker & Co., later named Springs & Co.  

In 1925, Springs acquired the vintage structures at 13 through 19 West 47th Street and commissioned architect Walter M. Mason to design an 18-story brick and stone office building on the site.  Called the Springs Building, it was completed in 1927 at a cost of $1 million--about 18 times that much in 2025 terms.  Mason's Renaissance Revival-style structure looked as much as a luxury hotel as a business building.  A glorious succession of setbacks combined with stone balustrades, balconies and octagonal towers flanking a three-story gable created an imposing whole.

The original tenants were varied.  Among the initial occupants were the headquarters of the Leather Vita Corporation which manufactured a leather cleaning and preservation compound; and Schanz, Inc. a men's tailoring firm.

New York Evening Post, December 1, 1927 

Perhaps the first of the jewelers in the building was L. Heller & Son, Inc.  The gem dealer had a branch in Paris and advertised  to jewelry makers on March 2, 1927, "Large stones of fine quality, series of matched sizes for bracelets and other jewelry."

At the time of that ad, L. Heller & Son, Inc. was in the midst of major negotiations with the Soviet Union.  Czarist Russia had mined some of the largest and best emeralds in the world from the Ural mountains.  The mines sat idle following the Russian Revolution.  On October 22, 1927, The New York Times reported, "The Russian Soviet Government, having disposed of the crown jewels and other treasures of the Czar's regime, is now seeking to raise money from capitalist countries."  The article said that L. Heller & Son, Inc. had purchased "a concession on the famous Ural emerald mines" and "has already put the best part of $1,000,000 worth of Russian emeralds on the American market as a result of the deal."  L. Heller & Son, Inc. agreed to supply cash and managing personnel to operate the mines jointly with the Soviet Government.

The building's tenant list continued to be varied.  In 1929, Katherine M. H. Marshall, a sales agent for women's wear makers took part of the eighth floor; while Johnson Matthey & Co., Inc. a London-based precious metals firm, took the remainder of the floor.  Also in the building were the construction and development firm Pentaboro Realty Corporation, and Janet Lewis's "book doctor" shop.  Lewis started her business in 1908 when the wife of Richard Morris Hunt asked her "what to do about old French bindings she inherited," according to The New Yorker on March 29, 1930.  The portrait painter began restoring antique bindings, including those in the libraries of J. P. Morgan.

Stone balustrades and decorative urns flank a panel announcing "Springs Building."

A interesting tenant at the time was Mortimer Montgomery Lee, head of the silk importing firm bearing his name, and the owner of the Hadley Silk Mills in Paterson, New Jersey.  Born on May 24, 1846 in Farmington, Pennsylvania, he came to New York City in 1880 and joined the silk importing firm that would eventually become Mortimer M. Lee.  A resident of Norwalk, Connecticut, Lee served as Mayor there from 1892 to 1895 and again in 1901 and '02.  Despite the commute, he never missed a day at work in 45 years.  On the afternoon of July 9, 1931, a coworker walked into Lee's office to find the 85-year-old dead at his desk.  

Handling precious gems came with intrinsic danger.  On November 5, 1931, 36-year-old Paul Krakowsky, a diamond dealer in the Springs Building, stumbled into the Williamsbridge Road police station in the Bronx with his hands tied with picture wire.  He told officers that he was walking along Sixth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Street with a satchel (called a "wallet") at 6:00 when "two or three men approached him, thrust him into a limousine and, after tying his hands, took the wallet containing the gems," as reported by The New York Times.  He said they forced him onto the floor of the car and warned him against making any noise.  They pushed him out of the automobile at Schurz and East Tremont Avenues in the Bronx.  The kidnappers got away with $60,000 worth of unset diamonds--about $1.24 million today.

Paul Krakowsky was a partner in the diamond firm of Krakowsky Freres, which also had offices in Belgium, Antwerp and Paris.  The firm owned its own diamond mine in British Guiana.  Krakowsky's success in business was not equaled in his domestic life.  In 1933 he and his wife, Ruth, separated "because of differences in temperament," as explained by Krakowsky's lawyer, Matthew M. Levy.  Krakowsky moved into a suite in the Hotel St. Moritz while Ruth and the two children remained in the family's suburban home.

On the morning of March 8, 1934, Matthew M. Levy and a friend of Krakowsky, Jack Silberfeld (whose offices were in the same building as Levy's) received letters from the 39-year-old that said he "couldn't stand it any longer."  Jack Silberfeld rushed to the St. Moritz.  The New York Times reported, "His friend was found on the floor beside his bed with a pistol beside him."  Krakowsky had fired two bullets into his head.  The wounded man was taken to the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward's Island where he lingered for three months, finally dying on June 12.

Despite the numerous gems and jewelry firms on the tenant list, 15 West 47th Street continued to attract other types of businesses.  Among them in the 1940s were the Medo Photo Supply Company, the Lockwood Trade Journal Company, the International Electronics Laboratories, and the New York State Commission for the Blind.

Fascinating tenants at the time were Eugene Shawl and his son, Alfred.  Born in Poland in 1868, Eugene Shawl took his family to Germany in 1904.  Alfred showed no interest in his father's jewelry business and pursued law.  He graduated from the law school at Koenigsberg in 1922 and later was appointed an assistant district attorney for Koenigsberg and Marienwerer in East Prussia.

In 1932, the younger Shawl was assigned to prosecute several Nazis who killed two Communists who had infiltrated a Nazi meeting.  The New York Times later recounted, "Several of the Nazis were sent to prison...On leaving the courtroom, [Baldur] von Schirach turned to Mr. Shawl and said: "I'll never forget you.  You'll think of me, Mr. Attorney."

When Hitler took power, he disbarred all Jewish lawyers.  The father and son fled to France where they established a small jewelry shop.  They "made lapel watch cases--unusual pieces of new and functional design," said The Times.  "And it wasn't long before [their] concern was shipping to all parts of the world."

When the Nazis entered France, and with Alfred "high on Hitler's extermination list," the Shawls fled to New York City.  Their Norma Jewelry Corporation created what the younger Shawl called "heirloom pieces."  The firm "revived the wearing of fob watches by women," according to The New York Times, which said on June 9, 1950 that Alfred, "believes that by making articles that can be disassembled, the same ornament may be adapted to six or eight difference uses."  Norma Jewelry Corporation was still in the building on November 17, 1953 when Eugene Shawl died at the age of 85.

By 1957, the Springs Building was known as the West Side Jewelers Exchange.  That year the building was the target of multiple robberies.  When Marcus Schwartz, a partner in  the diamond cutting firm Weisbrot & Schwartz, was robbed on August 22, The New York Times remarked, "It was the third incident of its kind in the exchange in less than a month."

At 8:10 that morning, Schwartz was opening his 17th-floor office when two men forced him inside and ordered him to open the safe.  They tied him to a chair and fled with the equivalent of $334,000 today in finished diamonds.  Schwartz was eventually freed by a building maintenance man who heard his shouts.

Diamond dealers in the building continued to be victims through the 1960s and '70s, but two incidents in particular shook the industry and the city.  The first involved diamond dealer Henri Teichler, a tenant here who devised a devious scheme in the spring of 1965.  He had watched and memorized the movements of another jeweler, Ben Mellen, who occupied a ground floor space across the street at 36 West 47th Street.  In April, Teichler spoke with a mobster and told him he "wanted to hire two gunmen who knew what they were doing, men who had had experience in holdups," according to The New York Times.  He told the racketeer he planned a half-million-dollar gem heist.

A few days later, the mobster introduced Teichler to two "hired gunmen."  A week of preparation beginning on April 20 included Teichler's instructing them on Mellen's habits, and a dry-run with Teichler timing them with a stopwatch.  On the night of the robbery, the gunmen were to grab Mellen's tray of diamonds, throw a smoke bomb down the stairs where guards were stationed at the vault, then shoot tear gas at Mellen and push him down the stairs.  

That night, Teichler waited in a hotel room for the thugs to return.  Six detectives, instead, walked in and arrested him.  The gunmen he hired were undercover detectives, put on the case when the mobster Teichler originally contacted went to authorities.

Diamond cutter Schlomo Tal, an Israeli citizen, had an office here on the 15th Floor.  At 5:30 on the afternoon of September 20, 1977, diamond broker Pinchos Jaroslawicz left the Diamond Dealers' Club at 30 West 47th Street for an appointment with Tal, but according to him, Jaroslawicz never arrived.

Days later, there was still no trace of the 20-year-old broker who had reportedly been carrying as much as $1 million worth of gems.  Foul play was suspected, police telling reporters that Jaroslawicz "had a good reputation in the diamond district and that it was very unlikely that he left of his own accord."

The mystery deepened when Shlomo Tal left home in Plainview, Long Island on Sunday morning September 25, telling his wife he was going to the office.  Now he, too, went missing.  Two days later, Detective Sgt. Robert Young said, "right now, we're treating this as a coincidence--a very strange coincidence."  Investigators checked the West 47th Street office and found the door unlocked and a small window broken.

Then, on September 28, police discovered Tal sleeping in his wife's car in Queens.  He told them that he had been hiding out from murderers and took them to his office at 15 West 47th Street.  There, under a desk was Jaroslawicz's body, wrapped in plastic and stuffed into an air conditioner box.  An autopsy, according to The New York Times, showed that the broker "died of head injuries and asphyxiation after a plastic bag was put over his head."

Tal recounted a incredible series of events.  He said that after Jaroslawicz arrived on September 20, two masked men barged in, struck the broker on the head and forced Tal to wrap and cram the still-living body into the box.  He said he did not notify police because he feared the murderers would harm his family.  Then, when he left home on September 25, the same criminals abducted him.  "He said the two drove him around Nassau County, Brooklyn and Queens for most of three days, spending one night at a motel.  On Tuesday night, he said, the men gave him something to drink--he thought it contained 'a drug potion,'" reported The Times.  Chief of Detectives John L. Keenan said, "We are certainly not accepting his story or any story at face value."

More than a year later, on November 9, 1978, Schlomo Tal was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of Pinchos Jaroslawicz.  Tal continued to insist he was innocent.

The building still held tenants not related to jewelry or gems into the 21st century.  Included was the office of photojournalist John G. Morris.  Beginning his career in 1938, he was Life magazine's picture editor from 1938 to 1945, was photograph editor of the Ladies' Home Journal and Magnum's Photos, and the picture editor of the Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as holding other impressive positions.

Known today as The Exchange, Walter M. Mason's handsome limestone and brick building is as impressive as the history that has played out inside it.

photographs by Sean Khorsandi

The David Randell House - 75 West 47th Street

In the decade before the outbreak of Civil War, the 47th Street block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues became lined with comfortable brownstone dwellings.  Among them was No. 75, just off the corner of Sixth Avenue and home to the Randell family.

Italianate in style, it was three stories tall above a tall stone stoop.  The restrained ornamentation was limited to the handsome entrance where ornate foliate brackts upheld the arched pediment, the molded eyebrows above the eliptically arched openings along with the bracketed sills, and an especially attractive cast metal cornice and frieze.  Most likely a cast iron balcony originally fronted the parlor windows.

No. 67 (left), just down the block and seen here in 1906, was identical to No. 75.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Active in community affairs and reform, David Randell was nominated as candidate for Police Justice by the Temperance Convention on October 30, 1852.  That same year a daughter, Mary, was born.  David and Lydia Randell had five other children, Matilda, David, Charles, Cornelia, William and George.  A son, James, had died at the age of 7 in 1837, and 21-year old Louisa Ann died in 1839. 

The Randell house would be the scene of several funerals in relatively quick succession.  David died in 1856.  On June 2, 1862 Cornelia Catherine died in the house at the age of 36.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.    The following year, on March 7, the 74-year old Lydia died; and in 1865 the funeral for David Morris Randell, who was 44 years old, was held here.

Exactly when the Randell family sold No. 75 is unclear; but it was home to Dr. John Messenger in the mid-1870s.   He was on the staff of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was so respected and well-known that his name quickly came to the mind of a swindler in 1871.

T. J. Rockwell entered the fashionable St. James Hotel on Broadway on July 15 and presented a check for $60.  The bookkeeper, Francis J. Arthur "declined at first to have anything to do with it, as he did not know Mr. Rockwell" said The New York Herald.  Arthur was understandably cautious, as the check would be worth about $1,220 today.

He told Rockwell, however, that "if he would get some responsible person to endorse it he would then cash it for him."    Rockwell said he knew Dr. John Messenger very well and that he would be only too happy to endorse any paper he would hand him.  According to The New York Herald, "Mr. Arthur was also happy in the acquaintance of Dr. Messenger," and assured Rockwell that his endorsement would be good enough for him.

Rockwell reappeared 45 minutes later, "his face radiant with smiles."  On the back of the check was John Messenger's signature.  He received his $60 in cash and disappeared.  The following day Arthur took the check to the Bowery National Bank where he "was surprised and not a little disgusted at being informed by the cashier that Mr. Rockwell never had an account there, and that the signature of Dr. John Messenger was a forgery."

The ornate cornice survives intact.

Messenger sold the house in 1879 to Julius Hart and his wife, the former Isabelle Gosling.  The doctor's decision to sell may have been prompted by the completion of the Sixth Avenue Elevated train that year, just steps away from his door.  And it may have been too much for the Harts, as well.  They sold No. 75 to James E. Kelly on May 27 1882, less than two years after moving in.  Kelly paid $19,700, a little more than $475,000 in today's dollars.

Following Kelly's death in 1893 the house underwent a series of rapid-fire turnovers.  Between March 1897 and February 1902, when it was purchased by Dr. Albert G. Weed, Jr., it had changed hands at least eight times.  The old residence was still a private residence and Dr. Weed initially used it for his home and office.

Weed was a well-to-do physician, the personal doctor to Senator John C. Spooner, advisor to President William McKinley, for instance.  He maintained a summer home in Middleton, New Jersey.  But eight years later the doctor yielded to the inevitable.  The district was no longer one of upscale homes.  In 1905 the massive New York Hippodrome had opened just four blocks to the south on Sixth Avenue, and the block between 44th and 45th housed street car barns.

In August 1910 Weed commissioned architect Henry C. Pelton to convert the house to business.  The $3,500 in renovations called for an extension to the front, another to the rear, the addition of bathrooms and the rearrangement of interior walls.

The remodeled house was purchased by Benjamin V. R. and Lillian V. Winterbottom around 1914.  It became one of two J. Winterbottom & Son Co. funeral homes; the other located at 194 Spring St., run by his father, James E. Winterbottom.  The family had been in the undertaking business for generations since James's grandfather, also named James E. Winterbottom, started the firm in the 1880s.

Benjamin and his wife had suffered through scandalous publicity when, in 1902, his affair with Gertrude Thompson was exposed following her suicide.

Gertrude had left her husband a few months after their marriage when she discovered he was a professional gambler.  The Evening World explained "Thrown upon her own resources Mrs. Thompson became a manicurist.  She is said to have been extremely good looking and had many admirers."  But few of them, said the newspaper, made any impression on her.  She was captivated by Benjamin Winterbottom "who is said to be a married man."

A family friend, Mrs. Alden Eisert, said "Gertrude seemed to be completely fascinated with him.  She talked of him constantly, and when she did not see him for a day or two she seemed greatly depressed."

She was depressed enough that one evening in October 1902 she pulled her bed directly under the ceiling light and attached a rubber tube to the gas jet.  Lying on the bed, she put the tube in her mouth.  The Evening World wrote "As she lay dying she held in her hand the photograph of Winterbottom, which at last slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor, shattering the glass."  Gertrude left a note to her father that read "I loved Ben.  I lived for him; I died.  Gertrude."

Soon after opening the West 47th Street funeral home the family closed the Spring Street operation and James joined Benjamin and Lillian in running the business here.  The well-respected businessman (he had been County Coroner until through 1909) found himself behind bars on Saturday night September 19, 1914.

Apparently enjoying a drink that Friday night, James Winterbottom "made the acquaintance" of three men, Max Lichowitz, Walter Ryan and Joseph Shein.  Before they realized it, the sun was up.  Then, at 9:00 in the morning according to the New-York Tribune, "as it was both too early and too late to go to bed, somebody suggested a trip to Coney Island."

Once there the three men "made excuses," and left Winterbottom alone.  A few seconds later he realized his wallet containing $265 (more than $6,500 today) was gone.  He called two policemen who tracked down the trio; but a search failed to find Winterbottom's wallet or money.  But Lichowitz announced that his gold watch and chain were missing, and that if Winterbottom accused him and his friends with larceny, he would do the same.

And so the Tribune's retelling of the story began with the line "One good turn deserves another, and James E. Winterbottom, ex-Coroner of New York County, learned yesterday that a turn of any variety is likely to be rewarded in kind."

Among the most publicized funerals here was that of Inez Jolivet Vernon.  She was a professional violinist who played with the Metropolitan Opera House and had been decorated by King Edward VII and Tsar Nicholas II.  She and her husband George Ley Vernon, lived in the Sunmer Apartments at No. 31 West 11th Street.  Unaware the fuse of World War I was already hissing, Inez was in Europe in the spring of 1915.  George, along with Inez's sister, actress Rita Jolivet, and theatrical producer Charles Frohman were to join her there.

Disregarding warnings placed in newspapers by the German embassy, on May 1, 1915 the three boarded the RMS Lusitania.  On the afternoon of May 7 a German U-boat torpedoed the ocean liner off the coast of Ireland.  Among the 1,198 passengers and crew killed were George L. Vernon and Charles Froham.

On July 16 Inez was back home and, once again. planning to sail to Europe.  That day she made various purchases and had her trunks sent to her apartment for packing.    Aware than she had booked her passage and the apartment would be empty, the superintendent of the Sumner Apartments let himself in on Thursday the 22nd to show the apartment.  He and the prospective tenant walked into a gruesome scene.

The New York Times reported "Mrs. Vernon was kneeling at the foot o a bed, clad in black.  Her face was buried in her hands, and her right temple had been shattered by a bullet from an automatic pistol, which as found under the body."

Rather astoundingly, despite the fact that her face was cradled by both her hands (making the shooting of a gun seemingly impossible), the coroner pronounced it a suicide and ordered the body taken to the Winterbottom & Sons funeral home.   The mystery thickened when it was later rumored that George had been to meet with the Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovitch to complete an arms deal when he died; and that Inez's subsequent trip was to finished the deal.

A moving double funeral occurred here on November 5, 1917.  Two French soldiers, Joseph Vasseur and G. Fronier had been wounded on the front and were sent to New York to instruct American troops.  Unaware of leaking illuminating gas, they died on their room.    The coffins were draped in both American and French flags and the service was conducted by the Chaplain Edmund Banks Smith of Governors Island.   Representatives from both countries were in attendance, including military officers, the French Consul's Office, and a delegation of the Sons of the American Revolution.

J. Winterbottom & Son continued here until through 1921.  In 1922 the lower floors became home to the Penwick Restaurant.   The quaint name disguised a well-attended speak-easy that was raided on the night of November 17, 1923.  The following morning The New York Times reported "About 200 men and women diners booed the raiders when they entered the Penwick Restaurant...where, after showing a search warrant issued by United States Commissioner Boyle, they seized 336 bottles of beer and 48 bottles of ale."  That night manager Joseph Quigley and his oyster opener, Thomas Peters ("behind whose counter most of the beer was found") were arrested.

Quigley found himself in jail again following a raid on November 20, 1925.  And this time the Government had had enough.  The New York Times reported "The gay clink of the convivial glass will give place next week to the clank of the prohibition padlock."  Calling the Penwick Restaurant one of the "so-called 'gilded palaces of the night," the newspaper listed it among the places "wherein those who live New York's most expensive night life have been wont to frolic."  But the November 1925 raid was one raid too many for enforcers and the club was shut down and padlocked for good.

As mid-century approached the upper floors were operated as "one-room kitchenettes."  One was the scene of a tragic accident when the gas heater had a loose connection, resulting in the death of 74-year old Leo Oestericher and the hospitalization of his wife, Rose, on December 4, 1948.  Luckily, before she was overcome she telephoned her son, who broke in the door with policemen.

In 1952 Trico Watch Time occupied the commercial space.  Its presence signaled the change in the neighborhood to what would become known as the Diamond District.   The wholesale jeweler offered items like the "Diamond Jim" tie pie with "29 hand-set rhinestones and 28 baguettes in a double row," and a 17-jewel "Diamond Jim" watch, "studded with hand-set rhinestones, rhodium finish; black suede wrist band."  The watch was available for $16.25 in lots of six or more, or about $150 each in today's dollars.

In 1968 the building was renovated, resulting in a jewelry store on the first floor, offices and jewelry repair on the second, and two apartments each on the upper floors.   Peeking above the flashy Diamond District storefront today the remnants of David Randell's house look out on a much changed block.

photographs by the author