The Lost Arent Harmans Bussing House - 8th Avenue and 147th Street

 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Arent Harmans Bussing's name in early Harlem records appeared variously as Arent Hermens, Harmens, or Harmans.  Later he added his proper surname to property deeds.    He arrived in New Netherlands from Holland in 1639 "after the Thirty Years War," according to Cuyler Renolds in his 1913 Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley.  He originally purchased a farm in Flatbush, Long Island.

In 1673, following his marriage to Susannah Delamater, he relocated to New Haarlem, at the northern end of Manhattan.  That year he was named one of the five magistrates, or commissioners, of New Haarlem.  He acquired two "gardens," or farm plots, and built a house and barn.  The farmhouse, at what centuries later would be approximately Eighth Avenue and 147th Street, followed the Dutch model with a stone first story, a peaked roof that was longer at the rear, and shingled dormers and gable.  A full-length porch fronted the structure.

Two centuries later, the New York Herald would write: "It then stood in the midst of ample grounds, surrounded by outbuildings, quarters for the slaves, cider mills and vast granaries."  Historian Cuyler Reynolds wrote:

All the inside woodwork was of locust.  In the kitchen stood the old-fashioned Dutch oven by the side of the fifteen-feet-wide fireplace.  It was the house of that good man and righteous citizen, Arent H. Bussing, and was built on land which came through his marriage with gentle Susannah de la Mater.

A journalist from the New York Herald would describe the house on April 12, 1896 saying, "It was considered a marvel of luxury in those days, and was by far the most elegantly appointed home for many miles around."  A, perhaps, more accurate glimpse inside is contained in the 1903 Past and Present by Carl Horton Pierce.  He quotes a contemporary visitor:

The furniture goes but little beyond the practical and useful.  A gilded mirror, indeed, adorns the whitewashed wall.  The two beds have pillows and striped curtains...On one side is a small octagon table, and here [are] a brass candlestick and a warming-pan.  Upon hooks on the wall hang a musket and fire-lock.  No stove is there, but in the ample fireplace the wood crackles and blazes cheerfully above the huge back-log and around the two iron dinner pots, hung to the trammel by hooks and chain.

Arent and Susannah Bussing had three children: Peter, born in 1674; Harman, born the following year; and Harman 2nd, in 1677.   Bussing was prominent in the New Haarlem community.  In addition to his position as magistrate, in 1676 he was made corporal of the nightwatch, and he was an officer in the Reformed Dutch Church of Haarlem.

On April 17, 1694, following Susannah's death, he married Divertje Eva Lubberts and they would have six more children.

Over the decades, Bussing continually added to his property until, by the time of his death in 1718, his farm engulfed 127 acres.  His eldest son, Peter, who had married Rebecca Vermilye on June 7, 1700, bought out his siblings' interests in the farm.  He continued to enlarge the property.  The couple would have six children.  Peter died in 1737, "leaving his house and lands in Harlem to his son, Aaron," according to James Riker in his 1881 Harlem: Its Origin and Early Annals.  To his two other sons he gave farms in Fordham.

The Harlem estate inherited by Aaron Bussing now encompassed 201 acres.  It stretched from approximately 139th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, to 155th Street.  Born on October 21, 1730, Bussing was married to Maria Myer.  The couple had six children, four sons and two daughters. 

With the Continental and British armies closing in on the Harlem district, the Bussing family fled the homestead around August 1776.  According to the New York Herald decades later, "There was fierce fighting on the Bussing Farm between the redcoats and Washington's Continentals."  The family did not return to their land until the British evacuated New York in November 1783.  One year later Aaron Bussing died there at the age of 81.

His heirs sold off the vast property.  The parcel containing the homestead was purchased by Aaron's and Maria's daughter, Catharine, who was married to Abraham Storm.

The house remained in the Bussing family throughout the coming decades.  Another Abraham Bussing lived in the house until around 1856.  It then became home to his daughter, Rebecca, who was married to Nathaniel Jarvis.  It passed to their son, Nathaniel Jarvis Jr.  By then the Bussing House was a rare surviving example of Dutch Colonial architecture in Manhattan.  An article titled "Historic Home and Landmarks" in the January 1889 issue of the Magazine of American History, mentioned, "The Watkins house has passed away, but the home of the influential Bussing family remains, and is a fine example of the practical application of certain principles of foreign domestic architecture to the requirements of a young and progressive people."

By the time of the article, the city was closing in on the venerable structure.  "The house originally stood on a gentle elevation," said the New York Herald, "but when Bussing's lane was transformed into Eighth avenue the grade was raised so that the old house was left in the hollow which it occupied for the latter half of its history."

Nathaniel Jarvis, Jr. did not live in the house.  Instead, he owned a sumptuous home at 62 East 55th Street in the fashionable mansion district.  The New York Herald noted, "Mr. Jarvis now has in his possession many interesting relics of the old place, and a grapeshot and British buttons found while ploughing on the farm."

photo by Catharine Wood Barnes, Magazine of American History, January 1889 (copyright expired)

In 1889, Nathaniel Jarvis, Jr. was in serious trouble as the source of his luxurious lifestyle became exposed.  Several years earlier, the courts had put him in charge of the $100,000 estate of Bomanjee Byramjee Colah.  It was a significant amount, equaling more than $3 million in 2022.  Now, in October 1889, the co-administrator, Prescott Hall Butler, charged Jarvis with absconding with the fortune.

On December 26, 1889, The New York Times titled an article "Nathaniel Jarvis Must Pay Up."  The article said, "It was claimed by Jarvis that the money had been swallowed up in bad investments."  The Supreme Court disagreed.  "In the meantime, friends of Jarvis offered $60,000 as a compromise, but Joseph H. Choate...refused to receive less than $65,000, and Jarvis's friends finally agreed to pay this sum."

Just over six years later Jarvis sold his ancestral home to developer W. W. Shupe.  On April 12, 1896 the New York Herald entitled an article, "Bussing House Is Demolished," and wrote, "Another picturesque landmark of old New York disappeared a few days ago, when the ancient Bussing house, at Eighth avenue and 147th street, was demolished to make way for a row of modern apartment houses.  It was about the last of the ancient homesteads which but a few years ago were numerous in the upper end of Manhattan Island."

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The Lost S. & W. Dry Goods Store Building - 466 Pearl Street

 

466 Pearl Street (the white frame structure) contained a grocery street level in 1861.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Continental Army had abandoned New York City prior to the British landing in lower Manhattan on September 15, 1776.  On the night of September 20 fire broke out in the Fighting Cocks Tavern, near Whitehall Slip.  Fanned by strong winds, the fire grew to an inferno, spreading north and west and burning throughout the night.  By morning between 400 and 1,000 buildings were destroyed--upwards of 25 percent of the city's structures.  The British blamed the patriots of arson, the revolutionists accused the British of the same.

Whatever the cause of the devastation, a massive rebuilding effort was necessary following the Revolution.  Some charred blocks of Pearl Street became lined with handsome Georgian and Federal-style brick-faced homes by the 1810's and '20's, while others were more commercial.

Straddling the fence was 466 Pearl Street, just west of Chatham Street (renamed Park Row in 1886).  The clapboard house-and-store rose two full stories to a gambrel-roofed attic with a single prominent dormer.  Although almost assuredly new construction, its style harkened back to the Dutch architecture of two generations earlier.

The upper floors were operated as a boarding house by Martha LaGrave in the first years of the 19th century.  Among her boarders in 1811 was a new arrival in New York, who immediately offered his musical services:

F. Mellne, lately from Paris and Italy, begs leave to inform the Gentlemen of New-York, that he intends giving lessons on the Clarinet, Flute and Flagolet.  He flatters himself that those gentlemen who will honor him with their favours will derive great advantage from his manner of teaching, for their improvements.  For particulars and terms of tuition, apply at No. 466 Pearl-street.

At the time, the S. & W. Dry Goods store operated at street level.  (In the large corner building was Matthew Bolmer's "granery and grain chandlery" business.)  It is unclear whether Abraham Howard Quincy's stove showroom supplanted the dry goods store, or if the two businesses shared the space.  In either case, in 1813 his "Fire Proof Stone Stoves" were being exhibited in 466 Pearl Street.

Quincy's domestic stoves were innovative, using stone to insulate the cast iron.  Among their advantages, said an advertisement, were a "very great saving of Fuel," and "the safety with which they are used in nurseries, as children may approach and come in contact with them without injury."

An announcement in the New-York Evening Post on October 4, 1813 said, "A variety of beautiful models and designs by Mr. Holland, are exhibited at the Ware House, No. 466 Pearl street.  Applications are there to be made, and the requisite information will there be given on all points, for the satisfaction of purchasers.  The Ware House is open every day, from sun-rise till sun-set."

Abraham Howard Quincy's invention received an important vote of confidence when several stoves were purchased by the city in 1814.  Quincy wrote to former President Thomas Jefferson that year, saying the "system is in satisfactory operation at City Hall."  

Just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, the intersection of Pearl and Chatham Streets was heavily commercial.  466 Pearl (left) has sprouted signage over the sidewalk.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Quincy returned to his native Boston in 1815.  The store space became home to a whole grocery business.  After years of operating the store, in preparation for his retirement in 1836 the owner advertised:

Grocers Stock For Sale & Store To Let.  To any person desirous of entering into said business, a change now offers to any one with a cash capital of from 2 to $3000 in a wholesale and retail business in such a situation as rarely offers.  The present occupant relinquishing the busines."  The top-end investment listed would equal about $86,000 today.

The space next became home to the Nelson Sherwood  & Co. grocery.  Sherwood and his family moved into rooms above the store.  His business would be here for decades.

In 1851 the Manhattan Building Association established its offices in the building, either in a ground floor back room or on the second story.  The association, which had been established four years earlier, held its annual meetings at Chatham Hall, not far away at 5 Chatham Square.  Its secretary, Samuel Jessup, used the association space here as his real estate office until around 1858.

Nelson Sherwood & Co. made way for James Kilpatrick's second-hand store in 1864.  Kilpatrick paid $25 to the city for his license, about $425 in today's money.  An advertisement on May 20, 1867 read, "Gentlemen having any cast off clothing to dispose of can get a fair price by calling on or addressing James Kirkpatrick, 466 Pearl Street, near Chatham."

The proprietor of the boarding house portion gave up the business in the Spring of 1872.  On April 10 the household furnishings were sold at auction.  The announcement listed, "Splendid parlor suit in haircloth, mahogany wardrobe, marble top centre tables and bureaus, chamber suits, feather beds, and hair mattresses, fine Wilton carpets, oilcloth, silver and china ware, silver plated counter case; also one small iron safe, &c."

The rooms once used by the Manhattan Building Association were taken over by the Second District Republican Association around 1879.  It would be the scene of political meetings and rallies through the turn of the century.  On July 22, 1884, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported, "The headquarters of the Republican Association of the 2d Assembly District, at No. 466 Pearl-st., were crowded at 8 o'clock last night with men who came to listen to speeches by Justice James R. Angel, of Morrisania, William F. Townley, and H. A. Matthews.  Previous to the speaking a handsome banner bearing portraits of the Republican nominees was swung across the street from the club windows."

Around 1885 the corner building was replaced with a five-story brick structure.  It seems that the developer coveted 466 Pearl Street, as well, and managed to negotiate the purchase of about one-third of the property.  The result was an awkward end to the former symmetry--the attic dormer now nearly snug against the western wall of the new building.

When Joseph P. Day purchased the property in January 1903, it was now just 25-feet-wide, "the usual city lot," as he worded it.  Day paid $27,000 for the vintage structure, or about $820,000 in today's money.

At the time Benno Borchard ran an "eatinghouse" from the commercial space.  In 1906 the United States School of Photo-Engraving was listed at the address, possibly having taken over the rooms of the Republican Association, which left around 1903.

By 1915 the ground floor space had become home to Joseph O'Rourke's saloon.  He lived in rooms in the upper section.  Prohibition, of course, would end that enterprise and during the Depression years the space was home to Sam The Tailor.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The unlikely survivor held on until the 1960's, when urban renewal leveled blocks of properties.  The site is occupied today by the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, opened in June 1996.

image by Americasroof

many thanks to reader Louis Trazino for requesting this post

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The Lost William Bayard House - 82 Jane Street

By the time this etching was made row houses had crowed in around the former country home, and the hip roof was updated to a peaked roof.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Bayard family had deep roots in America.  The first arrival was Ann Stuyvesant Bayard, sister of Director-General Peter Stuyvesant.  She landed in New Amsterdam in 1647, approximately the same year her husband, Samuel Bayard, died.

Nicholas Bayard owned thousands of acres of land outside of Manhattan by the end of the 17th century.  He established an estate near what would become Greenwich Village around 1691 and erected a fine home there.  The farm was acquired by William Bayard sometime before 1770.

William Bayard, who was born in 1729, was married to Catharine McEvers.  The couple had three children, Samuel Vetch, William Jr., and Mary.  The family used the three-acre farm overlooking the Hudson River as their "country seat."  Most wealthy New Yorkers maintained summer estates, sometimes called farms, where they could escape the stifling heat and smells of the city. 

The Bayard farm abutted the Ludlow estate.  Jane Street, a country lane running essentially east-west which lead to the Jayne Farm, separated the two properties—Bayard’s being to the north and Ludlow’s on the south.

The clapboard house Nicholas Bayard had constructed was fronted--as were nearly all country homes--by a long porch, or veranda, where cooling breezes could be enjoyed.  A hipped roof, typical of Dutch design, provided an ample attic level.

from Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Family History of New York, 1907 (copyright expired)

The sumptuous nature of Bayard’s home was hinted at when newspapers reported on a lightning strike to the residence on June 10, 1775:  

Last Sunday week the House of William Bayard, Esq., at Greenwick [sic], was struck by Lightning, which occasioned considerable damage.  In several apartments large Pier glasses were broken, and a quantity of silver plate contained in a chest was pierced and otherwise affected without doing the least injury to the chest.

It may have been at this time that the house was given a sensitive Georgian makeover.  The Dutch roof was replaced with a peaked version, with a classic gable and dormers.  Otherwise it kept its original appearance, including the welcoming veranda.

Bayard had been elected to the 1765 Stamp Act Congress and he served on the committee that drafted a protect to Parliament against taxation without representation.  But  his passion for colonists' rights did not extend so far as rebellion.  When the American Revolution broke out he remained a Loyalist--to the point that in 1776 he aided the British soldiers who occupied New York.

Whether history brands one a hero or a scoundrel depends on which side wins the war.  In Bayard's case it did not go well.  On March 6, 1777 the Provincial Congress appointed Commissioners to "take into their custody & possession all the personal property" of loyalists with ten days' notice.  The families were allowed to keep their clothing, a few pieces of furniture and three months' provisions.  Everything else was sold at public auction.  

The Bayard farm was confiscated and sold to Dr. Charles McKnight.   And then, according to historian William Smith Pelletreau in his cumbersomely titled 1907 book Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Family History of New York, "It was probably purchased from him by William Bayard, Jr., and it was his country seat."

William had remained in New York during the Revolution when the rest of his family had fled.  Educated as an attorney, he co-founded the mercantile firm of LeRoy, Bayard & McEvers.  In 1783 he had married Elizabeth Cornell and the couple had seven children.

That the Loyalist stain on the Bayard name had been erased was evident in William's close personal relationship with Alexander Hamilton--one of the country's founding fathers and a member of Washington's first Cabinet.

At dawn on July 11, 1804 Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr faced off in a duel with pistols on the bank of the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey.  On the dock on the Manhattan side William Bayard, Jr. waited for news and to provide any necessary aid.  Eventually, he saw a boat approaching from the other side.  In it was the paralyzed Hamilton, shot in the spine.

Hamilton was brought to the Bayard house.  Family and friends streamed in over the next 31 hours, during which Hamilton reportedly suffered greatly.  He died in the Bayard house at 2:00 on the afternoon of July 12.

The Burr-Hamilton duel as depicted by J. Mund. from Beacon Lights of History, 1902 (copyright expired)

Catharine Bayard died in 1814, followed by William Bayard, Jr. in 1826.  In 1833, according to William Smith Pelletreau, "the heirs of William Bayard, Jr. sold the house and land to Francis B. Cutting for about $50,000."  (That amount would be just over $1.5 million today.)  

Two years later Cutting divided the estate into 125 lots which were then sold at auction.   The venerable Bayard house survived for only a few more years, its approximate site occupied by the house at 82 Jane Street today.  (Interestingly, it is directly opposite the house at 83 Jane Street erected by William Bayard, Jr.'s son, Robert, in 1853.  The house is repeatedly, and incorrectly, touted as the spot where Alexander Hamilton died.)

photo via brodsky.com

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The Lost 1641 Stadt Huys, Broad and Pearl Streets

from Popular History of the United States, 1876

On June 22, 1920 The New York Times reported on the sale of an old, six-story building at 73 Pearl Street at the northwest corner of Coenties Alley.   The reporter paused to mention “The structure occupies one of the most interesting historic sites on Manhattan Island.”

It was on that site, in 1641, that Governor Willem Kieft erected the Stadt Herberg, or “City Tavern.”   A substantial structure, it rose five stories tall—the skyscraper of mid-17^th century New Amsterdam.    As much a community center as tavern and inn, its entrance faced Fort Amsterdam, the administrative headquarters for the Dutch. 

Kieft’s governorship came hand-in-hand with his position as director-general of the West India Company.   Historian Mary Louise Booth in her 1860 History of the City of New York explained “As yet, no tavern had been erected within the settlement for the accommodation of strangers, and the numerous visitors from the New England colonies as well as from the interior were compelled to avail themselves of the hospitalities of the director.”  Kieft understandably grew impatient with strangers coming and going in his house; and so had the stone tavern erected at the Company’s expense.

from Annals of Old Manhattan 1609-1664, in the collection of the New York Public Library

His problems started when he tried to tax the local Native Americans.  When that failed, he attempted to expulse them.   He ordered military attacks on villages on February 25, 1643 which resulted in the massacre of 120 Native Americans, including women and children.   It did not end there.

A two-year war ensued, called Kieft’s War, that resulted in heavy loss of life on both sides.  The Board of Directors fired Kieft in 1647, replacing him with Peter Stuyvesant.  The new governor seized Kieft’s tavern and renovated it as his City Hall, the Stadt Huys.  A cupola with an all-important bell was added to the tiled roof and the entrance relocated to face the East River.  The bell was rung at 9:00 on the mornings of “court days.”

A turn of the century postcard included the stocks (right) and public well.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Lawrens Duyts was on the wrong side of the law at least twice here.  Records showed that Anneke Jans Bogardus sued him for the rent of a tract of land near where Trinity Church now stands.  Duyts’s defense was that Mrs. Bogardus had released him from the rent—two hogs—and that he had already paid one hog.  The magistrates ordered him to pay the other hog.

Things were a little more serious for Duyts when he was found guilty of “selling his wife to one Jansen.”  There was no jail in New Amsterdam and justice was served physically.  Lawrens Duyts was sentenced to a flogging and the cutting off of his right ear.

In 1652 the surgeons of the colony petitioned for a law prohibiting that no one could shave people but them.   The magistrates wisely decided “That no man can be prevented from operating herein upon himself, or doing another this friendly act, provided that it be through courtesy, and that he do not receive any money for it.”

One trial record included a remarkable description of the courtroom.  “Over the bench of the Justices are interweaved the orange and blue and white colors of the West India Company, with the tricolor of Faderland.  Around the room hang the leather fire-buckets ready for use.  On the magisterial seat are placed the stuffed red cushions, which are carried to the church on Sundays, and which are to hold the weight and judicial wisdom of New Amsterdam.  Behind is the painted coat of arms of the City, sent over by the Directors from Holland in 1634…Against the wall is the nut-wood chest, where are kept under massive clasps and bands the records and archives of the court.”

Trials here settled complaints large and small.  Jan Haeckins and Jacob Van Couwenhoven came to court with a somewhat subjective problem.  Couwenhoven brewed beer and sold a quantity to Haeckins.  Haeckins then refused to pay for the beer.  “The defendant says the beer is bad,” said court documents, according to historian James W. Gerard in his 1874 book The Old Streets of New York Under the Dutch.

Couwenhoven protested, saying that if his beer were bad, why would other people keep buying it?  “He further insists that the beer is of good quality, and such as is made for exportation.”  After much such bantering the magistrates arrived at a Solomon-worthy decision.  They adjourned court and went off to try the beer for themselves.

The Stadt Huys served the Dutch until 1664 when English forces seized Manhattan and overtook New Amsterdam.   The colony was renamed New York on September 8 of that year, in honor of the Duke of York, later James II.   On October 14 the Dutch magistrates and some of the higher ranking residents were assembled in the Stadt Huys by order of the English Governor Nichols.  They were read the oath of allegiance to Great Britain which they were expected to take.

They refused.  Only after significant amendments were made did the Dutch citizens agree to the oath.

The Stadt Huys would be the scene not only of government meetings, trials (under Governor Nichols the only trial for witchcraft in Manhattan’s history was held here) and civic decisions; it was the place of ceremonies and tributes. 

By 1679 the Stadt Huys, now called City Hall, was in disrepair.  Supreme Court records documented appropriation for studs and planks to shore up the walls.  It survived another two decades before the city abandoned it in 1699. 

Stuyvesant moved the entrance to the building facing the East River.  watercolor by Louis Oram, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEL7L7L&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

City documents recorded “On the 25^th day of May 1699, Johannes Depeyster, being mayor, James Graham, recorder, Messrs. Boelen, Lewis, Walters, Wenham, and Cortlandt, aldermen, present.  The board taking into consideration the necessity of building a new citty hall, doo unanimously resolve, (Alderman Cortlandt only dissenting,) that a new citty hall shall be built with all convenient expedition, and that the same be erected and built at the upper end of the Broad street within the said citty.”

The aldermen also agreed to sell the old building for its materials and lease the ground “to farme for the terme of ninety-nine years.”  Merchant John Rodman purchased City Hall for 900 pounds on August 17, 1699.

Long before construction of the new City Hall on Broad Street was started in November 1700, the old Stadt Huys had been demolished.

In 1979, 279 years later, ground was about to be broken for the Goldman Sachs Building at 85 Broad Street at the corner of Pearl Street.  Archeologists studied maps and documents and concluded this was the site of the Stadt Huys.   Dollar Savings Bank owned the property and backed a $155,000 dig.  Nearly two dozen archeologists spent 11 months carefully working down from street level.

More than four tons of artifacts were unearthed—pottery, buttons, coins, delftware plates and tiles, and other fascinating relics.    On April 12, 1981 The New York Times reported “They uncovered what they believe to be the remains of the Stadt Huys.”   Later investigation revealed that the walls were more likely those of the Lovelace Tavern which was built next door to it in 1670.  Today the outline of Stadt Huys is marked by light-colored paving stones on the plaza outside of 85 Broad Street.   Visitors can view the Lovelace Tavern foundations from a section of sidewalk left open and protected by brass railings.

photo therealdeal.com

The Lost 1763 Beekman Mansion "Mount Pleasant" -- 50th Street and 1st Avenue

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1763 Gerardus (James) Beekman’s country estate, Mount Pleasant, was completed.  The house sat on a rise overlooking Turtle Bay on the East River.  To the south was John Watt’s “Rose Hill” (where 29th Street and Park Avenue intersect today), and John Murray’s country seat “Inclenberg” (the block between 36th and 37th Streets on Park Avenue now).  Further north were the mansions of the Schermerhorns, Lawrences, Rhinelanders and other wealthy New Yorkers.

Beekman was a dry goods merchant and a descendant of William Beekman, who was highly involved in the governing of New Amsterdam alongside Governor Peter Stuyvesant.  James Beekman's city house was at 240 Queen Street (now Pearl Street), but during the oppressive summer months the family escaped to the open countryside of Mount Pleasant.

The exterior of the mansion simulated the old Dutch colonial manses of a century earlier.  Constructed of thick wooden planks and brick, it rose two-and-a-half stories tall above a high basement.  The attic sat beneath a Dutch-style hipped roof.  As The New York Times described it in 1872, “he chose to indulge the whim of uniting the homely Dutch cottage of his forefathers with all that the world then presented of luxury and comfort.”  Formal gardens wrapped around the mansion which had the first greenhouse in America.  It contained orange trees and oleander among other scarce plants.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The elegant interiors were in stark contrast to the relative plainness of the exterior.  A century later, Scribner's Monthly described spacious rooms as “adorned with black marble mantels bearing elaborate carvings of scroll and foliage.  The fireplaces were ornamented with Dutch tiles, representing Scriptural subjects.”  Regarding the decorative elements, the article said, “Nothing more costly could be found in the colony, and it bore the additional merit of having been imported across the ocean.”

Four of these 18th Century panels were removed from the house by the Beekman family before the demolition.

In the dining room, 17th century-style carved oak pediments surmounted the doors, which were flanked by Tuscan columns, and the ornate carved oak fireplace rose to the ceiling.

D. T. Valentine's 1861 Manual depicted the "Blue Room" as the artist envisioned it around the time of the Revolution -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

The carved railings of the staircase were capped with solid mahogany banisters and upstairs the sitting rooms and bedrooms were decorated with superb molded plaster of paris ceilings and Dutch-tiled fireplaces.

Here the Beekmans entertained their neighbors.  It was an elite and close-knit group.  Historian Martha Joanna Lamb in her 1877 History of the City of New York pointed out, “Drawing-rooms were not filled to suffocation by a promiscuous crowd unknown to each other and scarcely known to the host and hostess.  The guests were all of one class, and personally acquainted.  The majority of them were related by blood and marriage.”

James Beekman and his family traveled from their city house to Mount Pleasant in this carriage -- New-York Historical Society

Although she described the social atmosphere of these gatherings as, “genial and agreeable with great freedom of conversation,” she was equally quick to mention that there “were certain formalities, however, which were never ignored; and the etiquette of foreign courts was observed with a nicety which we, of this later and more democratic generation, can scarcely comprehend.”

Two years after the house was completed, Beekman added the attached kitchen.  But within a decade, the idyllic life at Mount Pleasant was shattered by the American Revolution. As Washington retreated from the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, he stopped at the mansion for a few hours and, from here, issued orders for the Continental Army to take up positions at Harlem.  The General warned the Beekman family of the impending danger and prompted them to flee.

Rushing to evacuate before the British arrived, the family gathered their valuable household goods like the silver plate and flatware and stashed them in a secret closet built into an upstairs room.  As Washington left, so did the Beekmans, unsure if they would ever see Mount Pleasant again.

The mansion was taken over as headquarters of General William Howe.  Here, in an upstairs bedroom, John Andre slept before sneaking off to meet Benedict Arnold--the mission that would cost him his life.

Nearly a century later, D. T. Valentine's 1861 Manual depicted Andre in his room at Mount Pleasant -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Later, Nathan Hale was arrested in Huntington, Long Island and brought to Mount Pleasant on September 21, 1776.  General Howe dispensed with a court martial, telling Hale that he would be executed in the morning.  Howe gave the revolutionist the opportunity to write letters to his mother and sister.

Hale spent the night in one of the bedrooms and in the morning was hanged from a butternut tree on the property.  The provost-marshal, Captain Cunningham, refused him the services of a clergyman, denied his the use of a Bible, and while Hale watched, he destroyed the letters the doomed man had written to his family.

In 1780, the English Governor Sir Henry Clinton turned the house over to Baroness Reidesel, the wife of the Major General of the Hessians, who was being held prisoner at Saratoga.  The Baroness wrote extensively of the estate, describing the beauties of the farm with its peaches, grapes and apricots, and of the renowned gardens and the well-appointed interiors.  The residence, she said, “left nothing for a tenant to desire.”

Finally, in November 1783, the Beekmans returned to Mount Pleasant.  Despite the many people who had used it, it was perfectly intact.  Beekman and his wife rushed to the hidden upstairs closet where, to their delight, all their costly treasures were still untouched.

The irritated Beekman sent a rent bill to the British Government for the use of both Mount Pleasant and the city house.

In 1840 the house was in danger.  As the city’s grid plan of streets and avenues inched northward, Mount Pleasant sat squarely in the course of 51st Street.  There were no exceptions made for historic structures sitting in the path of progress.

Unwilling to see the old family home destroyed, the Beekmans spent several thousand dollars moving it a block to the south. A new foundation was created on a high rocky outcropping twenty feet above the sidewalk at 50th Street and First Avenue and the house was carefully moved.  The extensive formal gardens were gone as were the orchards and greenhouse; but the unique structure was preserved.

The tall lower level was removed when the house was moved to 50th Street -- collection of the New York Public Library

By the end of the Civil War, the Beekmans no longer used Mount Pleasant.  It was leased to a dentist, Dr. Morey, and his wife, who accepted their positions as caretakers and historians with gusto.  The Moreys, rare examples of historic preservationists at the time, spent considerable amounts of their own money in architectural forensics.  They had the walls carefully scraped down so the original colors could be reproduced–cream and chocolate colors in the hall and library, for instance.

But history and architecture in 1874 could not compete with land values.  The house high above 50th Street with its deteriorating picket fence stood in the way of urban development.

As the wrecking crew began demolishing Mount Pleasant on April 20, 1874, The New York Times remarked, “The encroachments of modern progress have decreed its destruction and people have failed to realize the propriety of a country seat at Fifty-first street…For years the old house has stood in its isolated position, marking the advances of that tide of progress which has at last surrounded and overwhelmed it.  There is now no Beekman country seat; it is among the things of the past.  The destroyer commenced the work of its demolition…and the relics of its existence are shapeless and unrecognizable.”

The Dutch tiles from some of the mantels were removed and the drawing room was dismantled to be preserved by the New-York Historical Society.  And then the house that played so an integral part in the American Revolution was smashed to the ground.

The New York Times reporter lamented the loss of yet another historic New York property.  “But its vicissitudes are now over; its career is ended; and having been connected with some stirring events in the history of the country, it is at length blotted out for ever.”

The Lost 1759 Yellis Hopper House - 2nd Avenue and 83rd Street

In 1860 the area around the Hopper house was still, mainly, rural; however it was being rapidly developed. -- NYPL Collection

 In the early years of the 19th century, the land north of the city, in what would become the Upper East and Upper West Sides, was bucolic farmland where grand country estates of the wealthy coexisted with long-established farms.   The landed gentry like Archibald Gracie and Alexander Hamilton built elegant Federal-style mansions while the simple homes of the farmers were, for the most part, Dutch colonial.

When Benjamin Waldron married his wife, Elizabeth, in 1736 he purchased the two lower lots of Hoorn’s Hook farm on the west side of Manhattan in what was called New Harlem.  The tiny farm ran approximately from what is today 83^rd to 84^th Street, and from 2^nd Avenue to 1^st Avenue. 

Waldron built a stone farmhouse on the land and established a tannery and shoe factory.  Characteristic of the Dutch colonial style, it had a low-pitched gambrel roof, curved to swing over a full-length porch.  Here the couple reared their seven children, John, Jacobus, Benjamin, Catalina, Elizabeth, Cornelia and Eve.

In the meantime another Dutch family, the Hoppes, were living on the western side of the island.  Eventually the name Hoppe became Hopper and in 1752 John Hopper built a home on Hopper’s Lane, later to become West 53^rd Street.   The house and farm were noted landmarks and upon Hopper’s death in 1819 the property was divided among his sons, the youngest of which was Yellis.

Yellis, however, never resided on the family land.  In 1859 he had married Bejamin Waldron’s daughter, Elizabeth and when Waldron died in 1782 he left his farm to Yellis and “Amma,” as she was known.   The farm, according to historian James Riker a century later, “was thence known as the Hopper Place.”

The Hoppers had five daughters in the farmstead, Mary, Elizabeth, Ceary, Amma and Deborah.  Yellis, whose name was sometimes spelled in documents as Yallis, eked a living farming his modest land until his death in 1827.  A tidy picket fence divided the Hopper property from the adjoining farms.

Soon after Hopper’s death, Amma sold the property to Henry P. Robertson for $800.  The deed was signed on March 3, 1828.  Robertson, however, allowed the farm to decline.    Two decades later court papers described the land as “vacant and unfenced.”  In 1848 the land was sold for unpaid taxes.

George W. Matsell took a 25-year lease on the property.  By now urban pioneers were arriving this far north.  The New York and Harlem Railroad had established a station at 86th Street in 1837 making the area accessible to New Yorkers who longed for a less congested neighborhood.

Matsell built five homes on the property; preserving, however, the venerable Hopper Place that sat quaintly like a dusty antique in a changing landscape.

On November 15, 1861 the property was sold again for unpaid taxes, but Matsell managed to obtain another lease, this time for 15 years.  Once the lease expired, the charming little farmhouse lost its protector.

In the second half of the 19^th Century, colonial houses were viewed with the same disinterest that Victorian homes received in the 1950’s.  They were interesting and curious, but not necessarily worthy of preservation.  The land on which the Hopper homestead sat had become very valuable as speculative property.

In 2011 a gargantuan high rise apartment house rose on the site of Yellis Hopper's farmhouse, eliminating the 19th Century tenements that had replaced it originally.  photo by Alice Lum

By 1881 not only were Matsell’s houses demolished, but so was Benjamin Waldron’s farmhouse.  In their place rows of brick tenements rose and all memories of the farm and stone house were soon erased.  

But in ever-changing New York City, even these were gone by 2011 when an architecturally uninteresting highrise apartment building took their place.

The Picturesque 1874 Manor Chapel -- 348 West 26th Street

By the second decade of the 19th Century Clement Moore’s family estate, Chelsea, had been criss-crossed with streets and avenues and portioned into plots of building sites. Above 23rd Street the developing neighborhood was called Chelsea Manor; a refined name for a gritty area.

In 1854 Mr. R. G. Pardee deemed it "a destitute field, the most neglected of any upon the island.” Twenty years later The New York Times would reminisce “How many inducements were held out to seduce the young to sin and misery. Vice sought no rest, but adapted itself to the characters of those whose destruction was sought. There were low dance-houses, gambling dens, drinking saloons, and palaces of infamy in their midst, whose emissaries were to be found on almost every street corner.”

Pardee had already established a reputation for his work in Sunday schools (or "Sabbath schools") and in the winter of 1854 he appealed to the Madison Square Presbyterian Church to establish a mission in the forsaken Chelsea Manor area.

A committee report supported Pardee’s petition and the upper floor of an old building at 9th Avenue and 25th Street was acquired and given the lofty name “Manor Hall.”  Madison Square Presbyterian, with help from South Reformed Dutch Church, dedicated the new school on Sunday, April 8, 1855 with its first class of 14 students.

The old building, which had settled an alarming several inches, was in bad shape.  But because it was the only available space and the $6 per month rent was affordable, it had to suffice.

On the ground floor was a saloon, gambling house and bowling alley. One of the school officials would later remember that the proprietor, named Butter, was “a stalwart, black-haired, black-eyed, rough man” and “was also the keeper of a sort of house of refuge for all sorts of bad men – burglars, bank-robbers, counterfeiters, and thieves. Here they fled for protection from the officers of the law; besides, on week days and nights our hall was used for pugilistic performances, dog fights, rat baits, low dances, etc.”

Butter however, “finally became a fast friend of the mission.”

Somehow the righteous work of the Sunday school teachers and the lesser exploits of the men below coexisted for decades.

The school subsisted on contributions from individuals and various religious institutions; however it was generally agreed among the officials not to ally the school with any single church.

By 1866, however, the offers from the South Reformed Church to adopt the mission and take over its financial worries, as well as to build a new chapel, were too much for the little school to ignore. On November 25 of that year the Manor Mission became an arm of the Reformed Church.

In the meantime, the school and mission had grown. The first year there were 80 children attending, the second year it rose to 145, then to 180, and in the fourth year it reached 200. Starting in 1857 regular monthly concerts were held.

The growth of the mission and the dilapidated condition of Manor Hall prompted the church to erect a new facility.  In 1873 land was acquired at 348 West 26th Street and a year later, on November 8, 1874, the charming new chapel and mission were dedicated.

Drawing on its Dutch roots, the church had its new building designed in a Flemish Revival style with S scrolls and curved-stepped gables. Rich brown terra cotta set off the beige brick of the multi-purpose building. The chapel was 25 by 100 feet, there were two large classrooms, infant rooms, a library and an apartment for a janitor. The building, costing $25,000, was totally paid for when completed. $20,000 had come from the South Reformed Church with the balance being covered by a fund raising fair. The South Reformed Sabbath School children paid for the three chapel windows with their own donations.

A rather optimistic New York Times acclaimed “The ‘Chelsea Manor’ district, in which the mission is situated, is largely German, and in years past was known as the most wicked and abandoned in the City, and the dedication of a handsome chapel to the worship of God in its midst will be hailed with gratitude by all interested in the progress of evangelization.”

By 1880 there were 1000 pupils at the school and in 1891 Scribner’s Magazine noted “The Manor Chapel Boys’ Club, at No. 348 West Twenty-sixth Street, has an average attendance of about fifty boys a night, and would have as many more if its rooms were larger.”

In 1914 the South Reform Church disbanded and the Manor Chapel and Mission was taken over by the Classis of New York – the governing body of pastors and elders of the Reformed churches.  Two years later the Classis purchased the property for $35,000.

The chapel was renamed Manor Reformed Church by the time the building held its Diamond Jubilee in 1931.

In 1961 construction of an enormous apartment complex of 10 buildings was initiated by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, designed by Herman Jessor. Blocks of Victorian-era buildings from 9th Avenue to 8th Avenue, from 24th Street to 30th Street were demolished for the new structures and parks.

Suddenly the little Flemish building, now known as the Manor Community Church, sat essentially alone in a much-changed setting.

Manor Community Church continues to survive, its charming and picturesque structure mostly overlooked as it sits quietly tucked away on West 26th Street.

photographs taken by the author

A Dutch Colonial Survivor at 18 West 37th Street

Despite the commercial storefront on the lower levels, the unique house is surprisingly intact above.

In the1890s a rush of Dutch Colonial Revival buildings began appearing in Manhattan as architects drew on the city’s historical roots. On West End Avenue in 1891 construction began on the West End Collegiate Church, modeled after a butcher’s guildhall in Haarlem and, concurrently, McKim, Mead & White designed a series of residences in a similar style on the Upper West Side.

The contemporary West Side College Church was built in a similar style.

Around the same time the townhouse of Dr. John A. McCreery and his wife was built at No. 18 West 37th Street. Their five-story home was of the latest design. Clad in iron spot brick, it featured a tall stepped gable in front of a steep mansard roof. Terra cotta ornamentation included two panels of wreaths, tied with a bow, on either side of the fifth floor window, and a tall finial rising from the peak of the gable.

Intricate brickwork played out in courses at each floor and long, thin bricks fanned out on end to form pseudo-lintels over the windows as a thin, highly decorated terra cotta inset thrust up the center of each one.

On either side of the mansard, stepped gables finished off the roofline.

The eminent Dr. McCreery was a visiting doctor of Saint Vincent’s Hospital and a member of the University Club. Mrs. McCreery was active in both social and philanthropic endeavors; in 1895 offering the house as the “headquarters” of the Clothing Fund Association – a charity formed by well-to-do women to supply clothing to sick, poor children in the tenement districts.

While the 37th Street neighborhood remained exclusive, change was occurring a block away on Fifth Avenue. William Waldorf Astor’s brownstone mansion had been razed in 1890 to be replaced by the Waldorf Hotel; followed soon after by Caroline Astor’s famous residence next door. By 1897 the combined Waldorf and Astor Hotels spanned the entire block from 33rd to 34th Streets, initiating a gradual metamorphosis of the Avenue from one of millionaires’ mansions to commercial enterprise.

In 1898 the McCreery’s moved to 20 East 54th Street and rented the house to another physician, the wealthy Barnard MacKay and his family.

While living here the MacKays entertained sumptuously. On December 15, 1901 Mrs. Mackay gave a reception for debutante Mary Gansevoort Edwards. “The reception was a small one for debutantes and the young married set,” noted The Times.

The family included sons Archibald W. and Richard T., as well as the young Margaret Auchmuty Mackay, known in society as Meta. Later wealthy New York socialites would be shocked when George H. Morgan, the nephew of Pierpont Morgan, suddenly broke his engagement to Meta and married the daughter of a wealthy Japanese merchant.

In 1904 Dr. Mackay was killed when he was hit by a fire engine and a year later Mary Christina Mackay died.

By now the tone of the neighborhood had changed decidedly as business crept onto the side streets from the avenues. In August of 1908 August Miller owned the house when he granted a long term lease to William A. Pond & Co., a seller of music and musical instruments.

No. 18 West 37th Street would never again be the home of wealthy families and the site of glittering entertainments.

On May 15, 1922 the real estate firm of Price, Birkner & Johnston leased the entire building. In the meantime, the rowhouses along 37th Street gave way to massive loft and office buildings. Astonishingly, the house remained.

By the middle of the 20th Century a two-story commercial front had been slapped on the façade and the basement and parlor floors of the house were gutted for retail operations.

Today garish signs advertise a wholesale clothing store and where Mrs. McCreery once served tea from a silver tray a Korean barber shop does business.

But rising above, the upper three stories of the Dutch Colonial townhouse remain intact; a remarkable reminder of a gentile residential neighborhood on a now-gritty industrial street.

photographs taken by the author

The Quaint 1902 Bowdoin Stables -- 149 East 38th Street

In 1902 John W. Smyth sold the four-story house at 149 E. 38th Street to real estate developer and clothing executive William R. H. Martin. In announcing the sale, The New York Times mentioned that “The buyer will erect a private stable on the lot.”

And indeed he did.

In New York City at the turn of the century, it was not merely one’s good name that reflected his position. The social elite strove to outdo one another in the finest homes, the best entertainments, and even in the appearance of their carriage houses. Utilitarian structures like private stables made their own statements regarding the social status of their owners--resulting in mini chateaux and Renaissance palaces for horses.

Ralph Samuel Townsend received the commission for the proposed stable. The architect, who was best known for his apartment buildings and hotels, gave a whimsical nod to New York’s roots by designing a Flemish Revival brick structure with a stepped gable; each step supporting a swirling stone console bracket. Stone detailing stood out starkly from the brick façade. Townsend added two full-relief wreathed horses’ heads above the first floor cornice and a large sculpted bulldog’s head high above the street.

An ornate carved stone frame surrounded an oval window directly below the dog’s head, and behind the gable rose a tiled mansard roof.

Financier George S. Bowdoin, who lived nearby on Park Avenue near 36th Street, purchased the building in 1907 at a time when little-by-little motorcars were replacing horse-drawn vehicles. Bowdoin’s horses lived on the first floor while his coachmen lived upstairs. The banker’s elegant carriages lined up along one side.

A carved cherub peeks over the street number while above a stone cartouche announces the date of construction

Edith Bowdoin inherited the property when her father died in 1913. By now, however, it would seem that it was no longer being used as a carriage house. The 1909 Directory of the Breeders and Exhibitors of Dogs in the United States and Canada listed W. Cox as running his fox terrier breeding business from here.

In 1918 Edith Bowdoin had the horse paddocks removed and converted the lower portion of the building into a garage. After her death the property was sold to George Nichols who stored his four private vehicles in the garage portion while renting out the single family residence above.

In 1939 the building was tightly shuttered -- even the decorative oval window -- photo City University of New York

The unique, ornate building lived a hum-drum existence through most of the 20th century until it was gutted around 1984. The new owner, who paid $2 million for the structure, installed multiple skylights and created soaring spaces – some 20 feet high.  But after the renovation and just before he could move in, he married and moved to California. The 6,000 square foot residence with its sleek spiral staircase and open spaces was rented to Jane Nichols Page, the granddaughter of John Pierpont Morgan, Jr.

Then in 1997 Donald and Ruth Saff purchased the property for about $3.4 million. Where horses once munched hay the Saffs now hung artwork by Lichtenstein, Raschenberg and Nancy Graves.

The Saffs used No. 149 as their personal gallery/home/office until 2002 when it became The Gabarron Foundation’s Carriage House Center for the Arts. The non-profit association was founded that same year to promote “the cultural wealth and identify of both Spain and America,” and hosted exhibitions and lectures from the space.

The first floor where Bowdoin's horses once were stabled -- photo streeteasy.com

When the Carriage House Center for the Arts moved out in May 2011, the astounding building was on the market again, this time for $14 million.

photo streeteasy.com

Townsend’s flamboyant Dutch Renaissance carriage house, landmarked on June 17, 1997, is today a unique single-family home.

non-credited photographs taken by the author