The 1907 Camera Building -- 122-124 East 25th Street

 

On April 27, 1907, the Brunswick Realty Co. acquired the two vintage, three-story houses at 122 and 124 East 25th Street and hired architect Frederick C. Zobel to design a loft-and-store building on the site.  Completed at a cost of $100,000 (the equivalent of $3.44 million in 2025), Zobel's seven-story design was highly influenced by the current Arts & Crafts movement.  Steel frame construction made possible vast show windows at the first and second floors.  Both levels were framed in white terra cotta architraves.  Metal infill with paneled spandrels created three stacks of paired windows in the four-story midsection.  Drip moldings at the sixth and seventh floors recalled the domestic architecture in the neighborhood half a century earlier.  The top floor sat upon a dentiled intermediate cornice and an understated terminal cornice capped the whole. 

Gothic Revival drip moldings like those on the vintage brownstone next door (right) inspired the top floors of the Camera Building.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Despite being named the Camera Building, 122-124 East 25th Street attracted a variety of businesses.  Among the first tenants was the architectural firm of Pell & Corbett, whose School for Applied Design for Women on Lexington Avenue was just being completed.  The firm was composed of Francis Livingston Pell and Harvey Wiley Corbett. 

The New York Times, October 18, 1908 (copyright expired)

Other initial tenants were the Willow Brook Company, an art gallery; the Woodhull Press; the Magnesia-Asbestos Company; and the Arden Press.

The Willow Brook Company staged exhibitions in its space.  In December 1910, for instance, the New York Evening Post reported, "A collection of water colors by Mrs. W. J. Stillman, better known, perhaps, as Marie Stillman, who became a pre-Raphaelite under the guidance of Rosetti, is being exhibited at the rooms of the Willow Brook Company, Nos. 122-124 East Twenty-fifth Street."

An unusual tenant was the Waterman Institute, here as early as 1911.  The facility produced and prescribed medications that promised to cure a variety of disorders.  An article in the Atlanta, Georgia newspaper The Constitution said in part:

It is estimated that within a comparatively short time nearly three thousand persons addicted to the use of opium or morphine in some form, have taken advantage of the offer of the Waterman Institute, 124 East 25th street...to send a free trial supply of a truly remarkable home remedy.

And an article in The Springport Signal on April 6, 1911 said, "Advices from every direction fully confirm previous reports that the remarkable treatment for epilepsy being administered by the consulting physicians of the Dr. Waterman Institute is achieving wonderful results."

Perhaps the first dry goods businesses in the building came in 1915 when Silverberg, Kraft & Co., ribbon manufacturers; and Hawkeye Embroidery Company signed leases.  But the Camera Building continued to house a wide variety of tenants.  Others included the State Specialty Co., which marketed inexpensive novelties; the Foreign Tool & Machinery Company; and the Price Trade Publishing Company.

The Billboard, May 3, 1913 (copyright expired)

Government contracts during World War I were highly profitable.  Henry T. Price, head of the Price Trade Publishing Company, was also a member of the American Defense Society and in 1917 charged representatives of the Quartermaster Corps of the United States Army of graft.  He notified U.S. Senator James W. Wadsworth Jr. that companies were being forced to pay kickbacks before being awarded a contract.

On December 25, 1917, the New York Herald reported that Price produced a shoemaker, Peter Sebald, who was approached by a sergeant regarding repairing 700 pairs of Army footwear.  Sebald told him that he usually charged $1.50 per pair, but for that quantity he would lower the price to $1.00.

"You don't want to charge $1," the sergeant said, "You want to charge $1.25."  Sebald was told, "When you get your check, you give me $175."  

In 1919, the Big Sisters, Inc. leased space.  The group would remain for several years and on December 24, 1922, The New York Times reported, "The Protestant Big Sisters had a celebration for 200 children at 122 East Twenty-fifth Street yesterday, and forty baskets of food were distributed to families in need."

The offices of the National Association of Employing Lithographers were here as early as 1922.  It acted as a union employment agency.  An interesting tenant was James Chittick, who ran a textile school.  His 20-session courses cost $50--paid in advance.  (The tuition was a substantial $875 in today's money.)

New-York Tribune, September 20, 1921 (copyright expired)

The Vocational Service for Juniors moved in around 1923.  Founded in 1910, the organization awarded scholarships to needy high school students who otherwise would have to drop out of school to help support their families.  A letter to the editor of The New York Times on March 8, 1923 explained, "Five dollars keeps a child in school a week, $125 keeps a child in school a term, $250 keeps a child in school a session.  Even then, a child must often work after school and on Saturdays to make both ends meet."

A letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post from Mrs. Edward C. Henderson, president of the Board of Managers of the Vocational Service for Juniors, on January 26, 1927 followed up on some of its 700 scholarship graduates.  "Some are out in the world following trades and professions; some are working their way through college."

A less reputable tenant was the Knickerbocker Merchandising Company, Inc.  On October 6, 1925, The New York Times reported that the firm and its executives, Maurice Innerfield and Emanuel Seaman, had been indicted "with having used the mails to defraud retail grocers out of nearly $130,000."  The company's "high-powered" salesmen pressured more than 5,000 merchants to join the "Permanent Associate Buying Service Membership" to obtain groceries at low prices.  It was all a scam.

A renovation completed in 1939 resulted in offices and salesrooms throughout the building.  It was likely at this time that a zig-zagging iron fire escape was installed that necessitated the notching of the cornice.

The original second floor window configuration survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A two-year renovation of the building was begun in 1969 for the Optometric Center of New York.  Founded in 1956, it provided an eye care clinic and continued optometric education following the closing of Columbia University's optometry program.  The center's research was reflected in 1969 when a survey of 500 patients discovered that "Nearly 18 per cent of Medicaid patients received 'unsatisfactory care' on eye problems," as reported by The New York Times on October 2.

On October 23, 1971, the N.Y. Amsterdam News reported, "The New York State Optometric Association has made funds available to the Optometric Center, earmarked for students for minority groups...The new college will be located at 122 East 25th Street, the present site of the Optometric Center, and will occupy about half of the center."  The college would eventually become the SUNY College of Optometry.

The Optometric Center remained until 1983 when the building was converted to offices.  Then, in 2003, the upper floors were renovated to residential use--one apartment each on the second through sixth floors, and a duplex on the seventh and penthouse levels (the later unseen from the street).  The renovation including restoring the notched cornice.

photographs by the author

Philip Koplowsky's 1889 214 East 25th Street

 

Philip Koplowsky acted as developer, builder and architect for the three 26-foot-wide tenement buildings he erected at 210 through 214 West 25th Street in 1888-89.  His blend of Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles at 212 East 25th Street created a visual cornucopia of terra cotta panels and bands, carved female busts and fearsome masks, and, at the top floor, graceful caryatids.  Each building terminated in a dramatic cast metal cornice and that of 214 East 25th Street sprouted an elaborate, multi level ornament.    

Bands of cherubs and classical caryatids grace the top floor.  A carved grotesque mask stares from below the cornice.

There were four apartments per floor in the building, two each in the front and rear.  Because a large livery stable directly behind the building on East 24th Street created odors and a less than optimal view, the rents for the rear apartments were cheaper.  Rents for the fourth floor apartments, for instance, were $18 in the front and $14 in the back.  ($615 and $478 respectively in 2025 terms.)

Among the first residents were Michael Fitzpatrick and his wife.  Fitzpatrick was a lineman for the Metropolitan Telephone Company.  Whether it was the novelty of his potentially dangerous profession, insufficient training on safety precautions or simply his recklessness that resulted in his frightening experience on August 2, 1890 is unclear.  He was working on a telephone pole when an electrical shock "knocked [him] from the pole," according to The Sun.  He was "laid up for three weeks," said the newspaper.

A week after returning to work, Fitzpatrick, described by The World as "a big, burly man, weighing over two hundred pounds," was thrown from a pole at Bowery and Third Street from a second electrical shock.

Michael Fitzpatrick again returned to work.  Then, on September 23, The World reported that he, "had a narrow escape from death as a result of contact with a live electric wire at Eightieth street and First avenue yesterday afternoon."  With that shock, Fitzpatrick "threw up his arms and fell from the pole unconscious, striking a wagon that stood at the curb," said the article.

Someone ran to a nearby church and two priests arrived.  They administered extreme unction to the supposed dying man.  He regained consciousness by the time an ambulance arrived.  "The surgeon found a burn six inches in length and about two inches in width on the left side of Fitzpatrick's neck," said The World.  "It had been literally roasted by the electric current.  His shoulder was also dislocated by the fall."  In reporting on the incident on October 4, 1890, the Western Electrician said, "Fitzpatrick is either particularly unfortunate or careless in the handling of electric wires."

Other early residents were Rev. Andrew P. Ekman, the pastor of the First Swedish Baptist Church on East 20th Street; John McRobbie, a traveling carpet salesman; and James Quirk, a gripman for the Metropolitan Street Railway Company.  (A gripman controlled the streetcar.) 

In 1893, Koplowsky sold 212 and 214 East 25th Street to Daniel Ohl.  He and his family occupied apartments in No. 212.

A tragedy occurred here that spring.  Two years earlier, in November 1891, Matthew and May Crown were married and moved into 214 East 25th Street.  The bride was 17 years old.  Matthew worked as a waiter.

Crown returned home from work on the evening of May 4, 1893 and found the apartment door locked.  The New York Herald reported, "thinking his wife had gone out for a walk he waited some time for her."  When she did not return, Crown called the janitor who forced the door open.  They found May, now 19 years old, "lying on the floor in the kitchen near the sink."  Next to her was an empty bottle labelled carbolic acid.

Salesman John McRobbie, who worked for the Philadelphia carpet manufacturer Nathan Miller, was on the road in January 1895.  The 45-year-old checked into the Merchant's Hotel in Albany where, according to the Syracuse, New York Daily Standard, he "was found dead in his room."  The article said, "the cause is supposed to have been heart disease."

Mrs. H. Wagner was drawn into an investigation of a jewel theft ring in 1898.  On January 9, The Sun reported that police in Pittsburgh "have uncovered a nest of diamond thieves, with headquarters in New York."  Two suspects, said the article, "shipped to Mrs. H. Wagner, 214 East Twenty-fifth street, New York, a satchel containing, in all probability, some stolen diamonds."  The New York City police intercepted the satchel at the express office.

Inside, hidden within clothing, were diamonds and a gold ring.  A letter addressed to Mrs. Wagner directed her to "sell the diamonds and that [the writer] would write to her later from Columbus, O."

Mrs. Wagner pleaded innocence.  She explained that six weeks earlier she had rented a spare room in her apartment.  She told a reporter from The Sun, "She asked no questions of him...He went out every morning at about 9 o'clock and returned at night at about 10 o'clock.  He paid his rent regularly."  According to her, he had left two weeks earlier and asked her to forward him some clothing he had left at a laundry.  She did so and asked him to return the valise.  She presumed, she said, that was the bag the police intercepted.

Her alibi did not stand up in court.  George Phelps and John Wyland, the "notorious diamond pluckers," as described by The Pittsburgh Press, were found guilty on March 7, 1898, and Mrs. Wagner was convicted as being "a fence."

Resident Samuel Brown found himself behind bars, too, the following year.  On July 25, 1899, The Sun reported that he and John T. Pomeroy had been arrested for having robbed William D. Davis and Eberhard Meyer at the Lawless's Hotel.  According to both men, on separate incidents a year earlier, while drinking in the hotel's barroom, they were administered knockout drops.  When they regained consciousness, they found their cash and valuables were gone.

Twenty-six-year-old Lizzie Hall moved into a three-room, rear apartment on the first floor in January 1902.  According to The New York Evening World, "Her real name was Lizzie Otto and she is said to have come from a wealthy family of Stroudsburg, Pa."  The newspaper said, "She was a habitue of the resorts along Third avenue from Fourteenth street to Twenty-eighth street."  It was an indictment of her respectability.

Lizzie became the mistress of Christian Ganze, a tailor on South Street, and he moved into her apartment.  Early in August, she kicked him out and began an affair with Arthur W. Campbell, a married window dresser.  Ganze did not relinquish his lover quietly.  On the night of August 25, according to The World, "in a saloon at Twentieth street and Third avenue Ganze attempted to kill her."

Arthur W. Campbell was out of work at the time.  Two days later, he told his wife he was going out to try to find work.  "After leaving her he went directly to the rooms of the Hall woman," reported The World. 

The Kahn family were Lizzie's across-the-hall neighbors.  Mrs. Kahn heard Campbell arrive, followed by Ganze.  (Apparently Mrs. Kahn kept close tabs on the movements of her neighbors.)  The New York Times reported, "A few moments later Mrs. Kahn...heard sounds of scuffling in the latter apartments."  About an hour later, she "heard the sounds of another struggle, followed by four revolver shots."  Police arrived to discover Lizzie and Campbell dead in the living room, "each with a bullet wound in the heart."  The World reported, "Ganze put a bullet in the base of his brain, shattering the spinal cord."

Bertha Strangohr and her daughter Caroline occupied an apartment in 1911.  They were, in the words of The New York Times, "in poor circumstances."  An eviction notice was tacked on their door demanding that they leave by June 21.  According to Caroline, who was 17, she found a job and "intended to try to earn money to pay the rent."  She dressed and headed out on June 21 (the eviction date).  Her mother, who said "she thought her daughter was going to leave her," blocked her way.

Patrolman Leidig was standing on the corner of 25th Street and Second Avenue when a boy told him "there was some trouble in the tenement" at 214 East 25th Street.  He found Bertha and Caroline struggling in the hallway.  "He separated the two women, and then the daughter fell into a stupor," reported The New York Times.  Bertha had attempted to prevent Caroline's leaving by placing a towel soaked in chloroform over her head.  Bertha was arrested for attempted homicide and was committed to Bellevue Hospital "where she will be held for five days for observation," said the article.  Caroline recovered at the hospital.

A light snow was falling when this photograph was taken in 1941.  NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Other residents would be on the wrong side of the law over the coming decades.  Sam Scianti and his brother, Frank, alias Larry Scianti, were arrested in November 1925 for the hold-up of employees of the J. M. Sachs Shoe Company.  In 1932 15-year-old John Kelly was arrested on a grand larceny charge, and the following year he was detained for possessing a revolver.  In November 1933, the teen was wounded in a gunfight in a waterfront tavern during which his friend, Francis Smith was killed.  Three months later, in February 1934, Kelly, now 17 years old, attempted to hold up the grocery store of Minar Popeiian with a friend.  Kelly shot and killed the storekeeper.  The New York Sun reported that he told police, "I had to shoot him.  He grabbed my pal."

In November 1933, longshoreman William Costello was shot through the ear by an attacker.  A month later he got into a "gun battle," as worded by The Evening Post, with police and was killed.  His brother, John "Kiki" Costello, also a longshoreman, was killed on June 15, 1937.  The New York Evening Post said, "In the bloody records of recent waterfront warfare, police sought today a clue to the identify of two gunmen who last night put a leaden end to the questionable career of John (Kiki) Costello, twenty-nine-year-old West Side roustabout."

Charles Catalano lived here on January 6, 1947 when he was arrested during the armed robbery of the clerk of the Hotel Belmore at 25th Street and Lexington Avenue.  He was charged with robbery, felonious assault and violations of the Sullivan Law (a restrictive gun law).  Eight years later, Catalano, now 38, was still living here.  On June 17, the Star-Journal reported that he had been arrested as a suspect "in the stickup of the bank at 140-17 Queens boulevard."

Residents continued to bring unwanted publicity to the building.  Sharon Ann Walley and Joanne Sadier, 22 and 20 years old respectively, were arrested on September 1, 1968 "charged with the sale of a dangerous drug," according to The Kingston Daily Freeman.  The two women had sold LSD to an undercover detective.

Despite its sometimes sketchy history, 214 East 25th Street and its two architectural siblings, survive as exceptionally striking examples of late Victorian tenement design.

photographs by the author

The National Fine Art Foundry Bldg. - 218 East 25th Street

 

As early as 1853, Jane Clare, the widow of Peter Clare, operated the four-story boarding house at 108 East 25th Street (renumbered 218 in 1867).  In the rear yard was a two-story building.  Clare's tenants were working class, and in 1853 they included one laborer, two carpenters, a watchman (today's security guard), a smith, and a shoemaker.

Erected in 1848 and faced in running bond brick, the vernacular building was trimmed in brownstone.  Its pressed metal cornice was supported by creative brick corbels and dentils.

An advertisement in the New York Herald in April 1862 foreshadowed a major change to the property:  "To Let--At 108 East Twenty-Fifth Street, a four-story brick building; with two story Rear Building, suitable for business purposes."

The lower floors and back building were converted to the Chambers & Gabler piano factory, operated by Emil Gabler and Thomas H. Chambers.  Chambers had been making pianos as early as 1835.  He and Gabler partnered in 1863.

The least expensive of the 1866 instrument would translate to $7,250 in 2025.  Hannibal Daily Monitor, April 17, 1866 (copyright expired)

Chambers & Gabler dissolved in 1866 and Vinton & Son's pianoforte factory briefly operated in the space.  Charles A. Vinton had founded the business in the 1850s, and partnered with his son, Henry A. Vinton, in 1865.

In the meantime, Maurice J. Power was establishing himself as a sculptor.  Born in Rosscarbery, Cork, Ireland around 1836, he was brought to New York City at the age of three.  Powers wanted to create monumental sculptures--the heroic statues and monuments that adorned parks and cemeteries.

from History of the Tammany Society from its Organization to the Present Time, 1901 (copyright expired)

In 1868, Power established the National Fine Art Foundry and moved into the East 25th Street property.  (Presumably, the designing and molding were done in the main building and the foundry in the rear.)  By 1870, sculptor William Rudolf O'Donovan was employed here.  Born in 1844, he had apprenticed as a marble cutter in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania.  He saw fighting in the Civil War, including the Battle of Gettysburg.  Among their many works, Power and O'Donovan would design and execute several Civil War monuments.

William R. O'Donovan in the East 25th Street studio.  McClure's Magazine, October 1895 (copyright expired)

In April 1870, The Technologist said, "Mr. Maurice J. Power is an enthusiastic artist and, above all, an American artist and truly national work may be expected from his hands."   At the National Fine Art Foundry, said the article, "the noble art of bronze sculpture is conducted, which may be observed in all its stages, from the modeler's atelier to the foundry."

The Brooklyn Citizen Almac, 1893 (copyright expired)

At the time of the article, Power was completing the soldier's monument to be erected at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.  A statue not designed by the National Fine Arts artists, but cast here, was Byron M. Pickett's statue of Samuel F. B. Morse, installed in Central Park in 1871.  On June 17 that year, The Telegrapher commented, "The bronze statue was cast at the National Fine Art Foundry of Mr. M. J. Power, on East Twenty-fifth street...The casting was worthy of the model, and creditable to all concerned."

A 19th century stereoscope slide highlights the metalwork--the statues, plaques and decorations--of the Civil War Soldiers' Monument in Greenwood Cemetery created at the National Fine Art Foundry.

On July 29, 1893, Architecture and Building noted that the National Fine Arts Foundry had "erected about thirty public monuments in the United States" and were located "in nearly every State of the Union east of the Mississippi River."  The article said, "It contracts for the complete erection of monuments, including the granite work, and in association with sculptors of reputation it undertakes the execution of such memorials."  

Workers in the foundry portion.  The caption in McClure's Magazine in October 1895 read "Making a mould for the bronze casting...Most of the workmen are French."  (copyright expired)

Among the monuments the firm had executed at the time were the Battlefield of Monmouth Monument at Freehold, New Jersey; the Oriskany Battlefield Monument near Utica, New York; the Soldiers' and Sailors' Fountain in Manchester, New Hampshire; and the Tower of Victory at Washington's Headquarters in Newburg, New York.

In 1895, Power handed the reins to William R. O'Donovan in the commission to design life-size bas relief statues of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.  The panels would be incorporated into the Brooklyn Memorial Arch.  In its October issue that year, McClure's Magazine said, "In the south side of East Twenty-fifth Street in New York City, just out of the roar of Third Avenue, stands a dingy brick building, on whose front big black letters announce "Fine Art Foundry."  The article said, "A queer place, one would think, to find Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln; yet here they are, or were during the summer months, eying the visitor with stern salutation from the backs of their bronze horses."

Maurice J. Power died in September 1902.  In addition to his artistic work, he had been highly involved with Tammany politics, serving as a Police Court Justice from 1880 to 1890; Shipping Commissioner for the Port of New York starting in 1893; and Aqueduct Commissioner in 1897.  His wife, Mary F. Power, sold the East 25th Street property to F. Morris & Co. in January 1906.

In May 1909, Rochette & Parzini purchased the building.  Founded by sculptors Michael Parzini and Eugene Rochette in 1904, the firm continued the tradition started with Maurice J. Power.  Parzini was born in Turin Italy and studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

A year after moving in, the studio was the scene of a mystery.  On the morning of September 23, 1910, a sculptor, Emil Gautier, was found dead on the floor.  Initially, his death was attributed to heart failure and "fellow-workmen, who found Gautier lying dead, said he suffered from attacks of syncope [fainting]," said The New York Times.  But the coroner, Dr. O'Hanlon, "found the case not so simple as it had seemed."  Gautier's head was badly burned, the hair "burned to the scalp, the top lobe of the ear was seared, and the skin of the jaw and cheek badly burned," said The Times.  In addition, his face was "badly scratched."  Frustratingly, newspapers did not follow-up with the results of O'Hanlon's autopsy.

Upon the death of Michael Parzini in December 1946, The New York Times remarked, "The firm did much work for the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White...Its work can be seen on the present Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Hotels Pierre and Biltmore and the Hotel Roney Plaza in Miami."  The article noted that Rochette & Parzini sculpted decorations of buildings at the New York World's Fair in 1939-40, "the New York Stock Exchange, the Yale, Columbia, Lehigh and Fordham University buildings and other structures."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The founders' deaths did not signal the end of Rochette & Parzini.  On August 26, 1964, The New York Times reported on sculptor Mario G. Tommasi's work high atop the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  The article said his hammer and chisel were working on "a block of stone that has been waiting since 1924...The cast was made from a clay model in the extensive workshop of Rochette & Parzini, Inc., 218 East 25th Street, a concern that has completed numerous projects here and throughout the country," said the article.

Six years later, Rochette & Parzini received the commission to execute the 11-1/2-foot-tall bronze statue of Leif Ericson for Leif Ericson Park in Brooklyn.  Sculptor Arnold Bergier designed the monument, which was dedicated on May 23, 1971.  At the time, the building's first and second floors were designated as a "sculptor's studio" by the Department of Buildings, and the upper floors as "storage."

In 1977, photographer Clara Aich purchased the property.  Amazingly, Rochette & Parzini artifacts were still in place.  She converted the building to a residence, and used the sculptural pieces as decoration.  In 1979 she opened the Casa Clara Theater in part of the building.

photographs by the author

The 1889 "Centennial" -- 212 East 25th Street

In the middle of the 19th century, thousands of immigrants poured into the Lower East Side and Kips Bay districts.  Tenement buildings replaced private homes to house the burgeoning population.  In 1888, Philip Koplowsky began construction of three 26-foot-wide tenement buildings.  He seems to have worn three hats--that of developer, builder and architect--for the project.  Completed in 1889, their exuberant design was a blend of Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles.  Each was five stories tall above a deep basement.

The center building, at 212 East 25th Street, was called The Centennial, in honor of the 100-year anniversary of the establishment of the country.  Its first floor, clad in brownstone, drew inspiration from the Italian Renaissance with fluted columns upholding smaller pylons that upheld an ambitious, bracketed cornice.  Renaissance-style carvings and grotesque keystones carried on the Renaissance motif.  The upper floors were a happy marriage of Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival with classical brownstone pediments above windows at the third floor that mingled with a terra cotta band of angels.

Each structure wore a bold, pressed metal cornice that set them apart from contemporary tenement buildings.  At 212 East 25th Street, the name "Centennial" was cast between the central brackets.  The substantial cornice was crowned with a decorative parapet that sprouted a square tower.

There were four apartments per floor.  (The two families in the rear had the unfortunate view--and odor--of a large livery stable on East 24th Street.  It was reflected in their cheaper rents.)  Phillip Koplowsky later explained the complicated rent schedule he devised upon opening the Centennial:

The basement was $13.  The first floor front was $19 and $15.  The second floor front was $21 and the rear $15.  The second floor front was $21 and the rear $15, the same as on the first floor.  The next floor up was $20 in front and $14 in the rear.  The fourth floor was $18 in front and the rear was $14.  The top floor was $17 in the front and the rear was $14.

The cheapest and most expensive rents would translate to $444 and $683 per month in 2025.

In 1893, Koplowsky sold the building to David Ohl, whose extended family already lived here.  Louis Ohl took care of managing the building and John and Edward Ohl ran a butcher business on Broome Street. 

While most of the tenants were respectable, like Elizabeth Kohlisch, an initial resident who taught in the boys' department of Grammar School No. 19 on East 14th Street; certain others were not.  On October 26, 1893, The Evening World reported that Annie Spencer had been arrested for running "a disorderly house," or brothel.

Annie's arrest brought consequences to her landlord.  On October 28, the New York Press reported that Edward Ohl had been arrested as part of Captain Gallagher of the East 22nd Street Station's "war on the owners of questionable houses."  It is unclear whether Ohl was aware of Annie Spencer's operation, but he was, nevertheless, jailed for at least two days.

The Ohls were politically connected with Republican figures.  During his campaign for reelection in 1894, Alderman Christian Goetz was arrested on a shocking accusation by a former maid.  On November 5, The Evening World reported that Louisa Zeirer not only sued him for breach of promise, but "of being the father of her unborn child."  The article mentioned that David Ohl had furnished Goetz's $300 bail.

Henry J. Coffee and Herbert Jackson both lived in the Centennial at the time.  On the night of May 17, 1894, police arrested Jackson at his apartment and, simultaneously, Coffee was arrested at the bedside of a dying friend, Henry Holt.  The men were suspected of causing Holt's fractured skull.

Six days earlier, on Saturday night May 11, Holt and Jackson were together when (according to Jackson) a man made an insulting remark at 27th Street and Third Avenue.  When Holt replied, the man "assaulted him."  Henry Coffee, who knew Jackson, helped take the injured man to Bellevue Hospital.  Doctors there told the two that "Holt was more intoxicated than injured," according to The Evening World, and advised them to take him home.  Not satisfied, once they got Holt to his apartment, they called another doctor who discovered the skull fracture.

When the doctor reported Holt's condition, Jackson and Coffee were hauled in as suspects.  Both of their stories matched, and, as reported by The Evening World, after they "said they would assist the detective to capture the assailant," they were released.

In September 1897, Clemens Hubbard and his bride moved into the Centennial.  Clemens worked as a waiter in the upscale Hotel Savoy.

Clemens Hubbard and his new bride.  The World, February 16, 1898 (copyright expired).

On the evening of February 15, 1898, the newlyweds attended a ball held by the Hotel Savoy for its employees at Maennerchor Hall.  The World reported, "Through all the night, Mrs. Hubbard danced gayly.  Hubbard, however, kept with friends in the cafe below."  At around 4:00, Hubbard went to the second floor, saying "he wanted a smoke before he went home."  He lighted a cigar and sat on the railing above the dancefloor while his wife went to gather her things preparing to leave.

The New York Times reported that Hubbard, "lost his balance and plunged headlong to the floor below, striking in a group of dancers."  The World said, "The dancers ran shrieking into the hallway...His friends clustered around him, helpless to aid him."  

The World rather callously depicted the accident.  February 16, 1898 (copyright expired)

Hearing the commotion below, Mrs. Hubbard rushed downstairs to find her husband dead.  The New York Times said, "His wife, to whom he had been married only six months, became hysterical upon learning that the accident had proved fatal, and was taken to her home prostrated."  Adding the obvious, The World said, "The ball ended with the accident."

Among David Ohl's tenants in 1899 was German-born Mrs. G. Wolfram.  (That was, it turned out,  merely the name by which she was known by her neighbors in the building.)  In fact, the 23-year-old was Gertie Beier, described by The New York Times as "very large and blonde."  Gertie had been seeing a 25-year-old barber, Charles Meisgrave, for nearly five years.  They made an unlikely couple--The New York Times saying that Gertie "weighs nearly 180 pounds," while Meisgrave was "almost a dwarf, weighing 90 pounds."

On the evening of November 26, 1900, Charles promised Gertie to take her to dinner and the theater the night before he was to sail to Europe.  But, instead, stood her up.  He appeared at her apartment the next morning, "and I told him what I thought of him for not keeping the date," she told a reporter.  "Then he got mad, and we had a hot quarrel, during which he demanded that I sail for Europe with him."

The New York World reported, "Miss Beier frigidly assured him that he would not only be forgiven but forgotten.  Meisgrave got on his knees at this juncture, and after eloquently enumerating the dinners, flowers and bon-bons of his wooing, begged her at least accompany him to the steamer."  When Gertie laughed at him, his begging for forgiveness turned to rage.  He pulled out a revolver and fired.  "The shot glanced from the woman's head, tearing away a portion of the scalp and spattering her face with blood," said The World.

Meisgrave shot again, grazing the top of Gertie's head, and then a third time, once again only brushing her scalp.  When she recovered from the shock of being attacked, Gertie reacted, and Meisgrave was no match.  She wrested the gun from him and he fled down the stairs.  Gertie, bleeding from her three wounds, was right behind, emerging on the sidewalk in her nightgown.  She was taken to the hospital where her wounds were deemed, "not dangerous."

Officials presumed that Meisgrave had escaped on the steamer on which he had already booked passage and would never be apprehended.  More than two years later, however, on January 3, 1903, Detective Corr received a tip that Meisgrave was in a 14th Street saloon.  He was arrested and appeared in Yorkville Court the following day.  Gertie, by now, was married and once again went by another name, Annie Schmidt.  Meisgrave's lawyer questioned her and "tried to impeach her credibility by asking her if she had not been a street-walker," reported The New York Sun.  The "heated argument" that followed was so chaotic that the magistrate's gavel broke, the head of it flying across the room and striking Meisgrave's lawyer in the right eye.  Meisgrave was held in $1,000 bail.

The Centennial was sold in the liquidation of Daniel's Ohl's  estate on June 4, 1911.  Living here at the time was Prince Albene, a vaudeville magician, described by The Linking Ring in March 1928 as, "a typical dime-museum 'spirit-cabinet' worker."  He and his assistant, Mae LaBrant, appeared as Albene and LaBrant.  His popularity was such that trade journals reported on his illness in 1912.  On October 25, The Player reported, "Prince Albene, of Albene & LaBrant, is able to be about again after having been confined to his apartment at No. 212 East Twenty-fifth street, New York, for the past five weeks of illness."

Emily Fester experienced a terrifying incident on December 18, 1915.  She left the Centennial to go shopping with Elsie Schultz that day.  Elsie was a newlywed, 24 years old and lived at 196 Third Avenue.  She had known William Schmeiden back home in Germany, and six weeks before Emily's and Elsie's shopping trip, he had appeared in New York.  The New-York Tribune reported, "He asked Mrs. Schultz to elope with him and she refused."

In 1941, all three rooftop towers were intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

After shopping, the two women went to Elsie's apartment.  They entered the building and Schmeiden appeared in the hallway.  The New-York Tribune reported that Elsie, "fell to the floor at the first shot from his revolver.  The next three bullets went wild...Two more shots directed at his own head ended his life."

Julius Bussinger, who worked as a steward at the Biltmore Hotel, died in mysterious circumstances on November 9, 1921.  His body was found in the areaway of 301 East 44th Street and it was several hours before officials could identify him.  Although there was a wound to his head, his death was deemed accidental.

There are still four apartments per floor in the building.  The 1889 structure is a striking example of Victorian tenement design, with an unsurpassed cornice and top knot.

photographs by the author

The Fourth Avenue Studio - 337-341 Park Avenue South

 
In the early 1870's, Allen B. Miller & Brother's carriage auction house operated from the southeast corner of Fourth Avenue and 25th Street.  At the time, the concept of "studio buildings" was gaining popularity in the city, sparked by James Boorman Johnston's far-sighted 1858 Tenth Street Studios Building.  Studio buildings provided both living and working space for artists.

Owners Robert and Ogden Goelet demolished the old building in 1875 and erected the Fourth Avenue Studio.  Four stories tall, it was faced in red brick and trimmed in in stone.  While essentially neo-Grec in design, it retained elements of the Italianate style, notably in the elliptically arched openings.  Large floor-to-ceiling windows on the second and third floors of the 25th Street elevation flooded those studios with northern light, so important to artists.  Three entrances--one to the upper floors and two to the commercial spaces--were framed in stone and flanked by polished columns.

King's Views of Ne York, 1893 (copyright expired)

The Fourth Street Studio quickly filled.  On October 4, 1876, the New York Herald announced, "Sam Colman has returned and put up his quarters in the new Studio Building on Fourth avenue.  He was joined by other artists within two months.  On January 2, 1877, the New York Herald reported, "[George] Smillie has taken up his quarters in the new Fourth avenue studio building and is at work on landscape and cattle subjects."  The article reiterated, "Colman, who has returned from his wanderings, has on his easel a painting of Durham Cathedral, perched away upon a high hill, with a placid sheet of water seen in the foreground.  He has also taken up his quarters in the fourth avenue studio."  Both Colman and Smillie were primarily landscape artists.  

Colman was a founder of the American Water Color Society and was its first president.  He was close friends with Louis Comfort Tiffany, who had studied with Colman in the 1860s.  The two would later collaborate on interior design.  It was possibly their close relationship that influenced Louis Tiffany's choosing the building next door at 333-335 Park Avenue for his Tiffany Glass Company's headquarters in 1887.

Colman's Storm King on the Hudson.  from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

George Smillie came from an artistic family.  His father, under whom he studied, was artist James Smillie, and his brother James David Smillie was also an artist.  George Smillie's landscapes were often set along the New England coast.

Other original tenants were painters Agnes Dean Abbatt, Elizabeth H. Remington, and sculptor Charles Calverley.  

Primarily a still life painter of flowers, Elizabeth H. Remington painted The Two Kings--Corn and Cotton in the Fourth Street Studio building in 1876.  from the collection of Bernard Baruch

Born in Albany in 1833, Calverley had dropped out of school at the age of 13 to support his family after his father died.  He found a job with stonecutter John Dixon who paid him $1 a week to clean out his stoves and make fires.  Beginning in 1853 he apprenticed with sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer, and by the time he moved into the Fourth Street Studio was a member of the National Academy of Design.  

On April 26, 1888, The Albany Evening Journal reported that a committee of Albany gentlemen "proceeded to New York last evening for the purpose of formally accepting the clay model of Mr. Calverley's statue of Robert Burns to be erected in Washington Park...If the clay model is satisfactory, the statue will be cast immediately and unveiled in Washington park on Aug. 30."  It was, indeed, satisfactory and the Burns statue in Albany became his most famous piece.  A bust based on that work was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1891.

In 1879, Appleton's Dictionary of New York and Vicinity commented, "There is quite a large colony of artists in New York, and for their accommodation several buildings have been fitted up for studio purposes."  It noted that among the buildings "devoted exclusive to artists is the 'Fourth Avenue Studio Building,' cor. of 4th av. and 25th st.  This was erected very recently, and is fitted up for studio purposes almost exclusively."

Among the tenants in the early 1880s were painters Robert Ward Van Boskerck, Albert Fitch Bellows, Ernest Longfellow, and Sarah Rhodes Macknight.  By 1886, all three of the Smillies--James, James David, and George--occupied studios in the building.

Artist J. Wells Champney and his wife, the former Elizabeth Williams, lived here by 1882 when The Evening Telegram notified other socialites on November 16, "Mrs. G. W. Champney is at home on Wednesdays at her studio rooms, No. 337 Fourth avenue."  Elizabeth entertained routinely in the studio/apartment.  On December 7, 1890, for instance, The Press reported, "Yesterday Mr. and Mrs. J. Wells Champney gave a tea at their residence, No. 337 Fourth avenue."

In the meantime, by 1884 one of the ground floor commercial spaces was home to Charles Lurch's piano store.  That year New York's Great Industries said, "he keeps in his warerooms only the best made instruments, carefully selected by him from among our leading manufacturers...He occupies a fine large store, centrally located, and carries a splendid stock of new instruments of all kinds and styles."

The 1890s saw studios occupied by Frank B. Carpenter, John du Fais, Frederick Wilson, and architect Charles E. Thain.  On September 7, 1893, a reporter from The Press visited the studio of Frank B. Carpenter "carrying to the well known artist news of the death of Hamilton Fish."  The article said, "Mr. Carpenter was putting the finishing touches on a copy of his 'Arbitration' painting, the original of which was presented to Queen Victoria two years ago by Mrs. William W. Carson of Newburg and now hangs in Windsor Castle."

The news was especially meaningful to Carpenter.  Hamilton Fish occupied a prominent place in the Arbitration painting, which depicted the 1871 Treaty of Washington between the United States and Great Britain.  He and Carpenter had spent much time in repeated sittings and interviews, and the two came to know one another well.

At the turn of the century, Tiffany & Company expanded its showrooms into the ground floor.

Famed artist William Merritt Chase took space in the building in 1908.  In her 1917 biography The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase, Katharine Metcalf Roof wrote:

The Fourth Avenue Studio was even more spacious than the Tenth Street place.  Partitions were taken down until a connecting chain of four rooms remained, two of which were extremely large.  Somewhat overcrowded, yet without seeming actually cluttered because of their size, these rooms were beautiful in tone and color.  Rich draperies, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese embroideries were in evidence on all sides.  Pictures of his own and of other painters, including a few old masters, stood about or were hung on the walls.  Beautiful old furniture, including some rare Spanish pieces, bits of porcelain, brass, copper, Japanese carvings; miscellaneous objets d'art, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Oriental, were set each in the exactly right place--for the taste that can enjoy such multitudinous ornament!

It would not be long, however, before non-artistic tenants moved into the Fourth Avenue Studio Building.  More modern studio buildings that were being erected uptown, many of them on the Upper West Side, lured artists away.  In 1905 Tiffany & Company moved uptown and the ground floor of 337-341 Fourth Avenue became home to the Fifth Avenue Auction Rooms, which would remain into the 1920s.  The Hartley Silk Mfg. Co. operated from an upper floor space by 1915, and the Atlas Knitting Co. was here in 1918, supplying underwear to the U.S. Army.

By 1921 it appears that Isabel L. Whitney was the last artist in the building.  She would remain at least until 1925.  Among the other tenants was Alfred Littauer & Co., manufacturers and wholesalers of surgical instruments.  The firm occupied space until the Depression years.  Appropriately, in 1939 the American Artists League, Inc. rented space in the building.  

In 1959 Fourth Avenue was renamed Park Avenue South.  By then the distinguished history of the building was mostly forgotten.  Somewhat fittingly, in the early 1970s art returned to the building in the form of the L A L Photo Gallery, which staged exhibitions of the works of photographers.

The ground floor space where Tiffany & Company once exhibited stained glass windows and other masterful works is today home to a bank branch.

photographs by the author

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