H. I. Feldman's 1940 139 East 35th Street

 

photo by Lowell Cochrane

On December 19, 1939, The New York Sun titled an article, "Apartments for Church Plot."  The previous year, the Church of the Epiphany, erected in 1856, was demolished.  The article said that the newly formed 139 East Thirty-fifth Street, Inc. had purchased the former church property at the northeast corner of 35th Street and Lexington Avenue as the site of a 12-story apartment building.

Importantly, the Tishman Realty & Construction Company had been hired to erect the structure.  "This will be the first new apartment house operation with which the Tishmans have been identified since 1931," said The New York Sun.  The Tishman concern had been static since the beginnings of the Great Depression.  "It marks the active entry of this organization into the construction field as a building contractor."

The article noted, "H. I. Feldman, the architect, will design the building."  Hyman Isaac Feldman opened his architectural office in 1921.  He would soon become well-known for his Art Deco apartment houses along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and similar buildings in Brooklyn.  Known professionally by his initials, before his death in 1981, Feldman would design more than 2,500 metropolitan area apartment buildings.

The New York Sun reported that the building would contain "156 two and three room suites and will present a number of ingenious features, such as in respect to dressing rooms and alcoves."  A roof garden was available "for the relaxation of the tenants," said the article.  Calling it a "sky garden," an advertisement described the space as being "swept by cool breezes."

Construction was completed in August 1940.  Typical of Feldman's designs, 139 East 35th Street had no setbacks and terminated in a drama-free parapet.  Windows wrapped the chamfered corners of the recessed central section.  Below them, the offset entrance was tucked into a reentrant corner.  Reeded brick piers thrust upward from the second to tenth floors, capped with striking stone palmettes.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

Interestingly, among the initial tenants was Robert Valentine Tishman, of the Tishman Realty & Construction Company.  Born in 1916, he graduated from Cornell University in 1937 and entered his family's business.  It was established in 1898 by his grandfather, Julius Tishman.  On June 12, 1941, The New York Sun reported that he and Phyllis Gordon would be married in the Hotel Lombardy that afternoon.  "After a wedding trip to California, the couple will live at 139 East 35th Street," said the article.

Moving into an apartment in October 1941 were actor Frank O'Connor and his wife, author and screenwriter Ayn Rand.  The couple met on the set of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings and were married on April 15, 1929.  Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1905, Ayn became an American citizen in 1931.

Ayn Rand in 1943.  from the dust jacket of The Fountainhead

Two months after moving in, Rand landed a contract to publish the novel she was working on, The Fountainhead.  It was published in May 1943.  Later that year, Rand returned home from a business lunch and, according to Anne Conover Heller in her Ayn Rand and the World She Made:

When she got back to the apartment, tired and downcast, her husband was waiting in the dimly lit living room, a peculiar look on his face.  "Well, darling," he said, after a dramatic pause, "while you were at lunch you earned fifty thousand dollars."

Frank O'Connor had received the phone call from Warner Bros. informing her they had purchased the screen rights to The Fountainhead.  The couple left 139 East 35th Street in December that year.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

In the meantime, composer and songwriter Vernon Duke signed a lease on January 5, 1942.  Born into a noble Russian family in 1903 as Vladimir Doukelsky, he was the grandson of Princess Tumanishvili.  He entered the Kiev Conservatory at the age of 11, but his studies were interrupted by the Russian Revolution.  The family escaped, eventually landing in America in 1921.  He was befriended by George Gershwin who urged him to Americanize his name to Vernon Duke.

Vernon Duke, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

While living here, Duke served in the U.S. Coast Guard and toured for the Guard in a show, Tars & Spars.  Among his best known works are Taking a Chance on Love, April in Paris, and Autumn in New York.

Like Duke, other tenants saw military service during World War II.  Among them was Charles G. Moses, who had attended Washington High School and was in the real estate business before being drafted on October 11, 1941.  The 23-year-old's life suddenly and drastically changed.

On September 4, 1943, The New York Sun began an article saying, 

Corporal Charles G. Moses, listed as wounded in action, wrote his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Moses of 139 East 35th street, that in the African and Sicilian fighting he was bombed ninety-seven times.  "The ninety-eighth time," he added, "they got me."

Charles Moses was saved by a fellow New Yorker, Louis Bellows from the Bronx.  He applied tourniquets and sprinkled sulpha powder on his wounds.  Moses wrote, "In the hospital, they took shrapnel out of both arms and pieces of my watch out of my left wrist."  After nine days in the hospital, Moses returned to his unit.

Another tenant who gave up their workaday life to serve was Virginia Sanders, the daughter of Howard S. Sanders.  She had worked for Hardy & Company, but on November 2, 1944, The East Hampton Star reported that she, "has arrived in India to serve the armed forces as an American Red Cross hospital staff aide."

On the afternoon of September 6, 1965, 34-year-old resident Sanford Simon was driving back to Manhattan from Westhampton when he noticed a teenager hitchhiking.  Simon picked up 17-year-old Robert B. Rowa.  At around 4:45, when Simon pulled over at an exit to let Rowa out, the teen pulled out a knife and demanded, "Give me your money."  Simon told him there was $275 in the glove compartment, but pleaded to leave him some money for the tunnel toll.  The Long Island Advance reported, "the youth left him a quarter."  Rowa was arrested two days later and charged with first-degree robbery.

An interesting resident was Edith Ehrman.  Born in 1932, she was the daughter of Frederick L. Ehrman, chairman of the board of Lehman Brothers, Inc.  Never married, Edith was the manager of the foreign-areas materials center of the New York State Department of Education.  She was more known, however, as a collector of Japanese prints.  A founder of the Japan House Gallery, she was also a member of the visiting Committee of the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute and of the Association of Asian Studies.

Quintessentially H. I. Feldman, 139 East 35th Street survives essentially intact, other than replacement windows.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

The Altered James Cumings House - 126 East 35th Street

 

Irish-born real estate developer and architect Thomas Kilpatrick erected a trio of houses at 72 to 76 East 35th Street (renumbered 126 through 130 in 1868) in 1854-55.  The high-stooped, brownstone fronted homes were designed in the popular Italianate style.  Three stories tall above English basements, their elliptically arched entrances sat within square-headed frames.  Like the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, the architrave openings of the upper floors sat on diminutive sills and wore molded cornices.

Kilpatrick sold 72 East 35th Street to James and Laura Melissa Shaw Cumings.  The couple had five children, James Maurice, Joseph, Mary Ida, Laura and Ira T.  

Cumings was the owner of the Columbian Foundry and president of the Morris & Cumings Dredging Company.  The New York Herald called him, "well known to all old New Yorkers and his active life is contemporaneous with the rapid development of the city."  Born in 1803, he entered the iron business as an apprentice to Robert McQueen in his Columbian Foundry.  In 1832, McQueen turned the business over to Cumings and his partner Peter Morris.

The Cumings family remained here through 1864, when they moved across the street to 81 East 35th Street.  William Speiden, a broker, next occupied 72 East 35th Street; and in 1872, Professor William G. Peck moved in.

Born in 1832, the erudite Peck was on the faculty of Columbia College.  He held the positions of Professor of Mathematics, of Astronomy and of Mechanics in the School of Mines.  He was the author of numerous educational books.

On December 27, 1874, Peck "rushed into the Twenty-first Precinct station house...and said that he wanted to see Capt. McElwaine immediately, as he had just been robbed of $40,000," reported The New York Times, which added, "Prof. Peck was very much agitated."

Peck's agitation was understandable.  He said two young men had carried a chest out of his house, in which were the family silver and securities equal in value to just over $1 million today.  Captain McElwaine's investigation suggested a surprising in-house conspirator.  He interviewed a servant who had been looking out the kitchen window when Peck's 19-year-old son, Henry, arrived with two teenaged friends.  The rest of the family was at church.  Instead of using the basement entrance, as family members most often did, they climbed the stoop and entered the front hall.

"She heard them walking overhead in the parlor, and then heard them apparently go upstairs to young Peck's room," said the article.  The inquisitive servant heard the front door open and watched the two young men carry the chest down the stoop.  "She went out, saw that they turned down Madison avenue to Thirty-fourth street, and on looking up saw young Peck watching them from the window of his room."

When the servant ran into Henry Peck in the hallway later and asked him what his friends had taken, "he told her to mind her-----business and he would mind his," reported The New York Times.  Doubly, suspicious now, the servant watched Peck leave and follow the same path as his comrades.

She notified another servant and they did a search of the house, quickly discovering the silver chest was missing from the dining room.  The two rushed to the church and pulled Professor Peck and his father-in-law, Professor Davis, from the service.  

Captain McElwain's probing revealed that young Henry "was keeping company with a dressmaker."  More importantly, he had accumulated significant gambling debts to the likes of James Oxley, "Seddons Mouse," "Owney" Geoghegan, "Paddy the Smasher," and "other sporting and notorious persons."  When confronted with the evidence, Henry Peck claimed he knew nothing about the robbery and his father refused to press charges.

The Peck family left 126 East 35th Street the following year.  The family of William W. Thompson occupied the house through the mid-1880s.  Like their predecessors, the Thompsons had a domestic staff and on October 28, 1879 advertised for two chambermaids.  Their wages were listed at $10 per month, about $315 today.

By 1894, the Gordon Wendell family owned 126 East 35th Street.  Born in 1859, Wendell married Frances Cadwalader Elwyn on April 20, 1887.  They had one child, Frances Gordon.  

Gordon Wendell was a wool commission merchant, a member of Jacob Wendell & Co.  (It was reorganized as Taylor, Wendell & Co. following the death of Wendell's father, Jacob, in 1898.)  Educated at Harvard, he was a member of the exclusive Union League, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, Merchants' and Harvard Clubs.  (Two of his sisters married titles.  Catherine Wendell married the the son of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, known for discovering and exploring the tomb of Tutankhamun.  Philippe Wendell married the Count of Galloway.)

Although Frances C. E. Wendell was a member of the Society of Colonial Dames and of the Colony Club, she was, perhaps, more active in political and civic issues than in society.  She was an early and ardent suffragist.  On April 19, 1894, The New York Times reported on "the political equality meeting" held in the parlor.  "A large number of guests were present, and both sides of the suffrage question were represented," said the article.  

Frances C. E. Wendell (original source unknown)

On April 25, 1895, The New York Times titled an article, "More Women as School Inspectors" and reported that Mayor William L. Strong had appointed Frances C. E. Wendell one of three new School Inspectors.  She was, as well, a trustee of the Babies' Day Nursery.  In reporting on her newest appointment, The Times noted that she "has long been identified with charitable and educational work."

In 1907, Gordon Wendell hired architect Richard Berger to make what the Record & Guide described as "extensive exterior and interior changes" to the house.  It appears from later photographs, that the alterations were mostly inside.

In the fall of 1908, Gordon Wendell was serving on the jury of the high profile trial of Charles W. Morse and Alfred H. Curtis "on the charge of having violated in several particulars the National banking laws," according to The New York Times on October 23.  Wendell brought the case to a temporary halt on the night of October 21.  The jury was sequestered at the Astor House hotel when Wendell became ill.  The New York Times said, he "had to be allowed to go to his home, 126 East Thirty-fifth Street, under guard of a Deputy United States Marshal."

Wendell's doctor sent a note to the judge the following morning, saying he was "suffering from an acute attack of indigestion and kidney trouble."  The judge told reporters, "I have no desire to kill a juror."  The doctor had assured him there was "plenty of room for the accommodation of a guard at Mr. Wendell's private residence."  Happily for the other jurors, Wendell was well enough to attend deliberations a day later.

On the night of January 31, 1910, Gordon Wendell died "suddenly" at his home.  The term most often referred to a stroke or heart attack.  His funeral was held in the parlor on February 3.

When this photograph was taken in 1941, the architectural personality of the house was about to be starkly changed.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Apparently boarding with the two Frances Wendells in 1914 was the young Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter.  The 24-year-old cleric's engagement to socialite Ida Miller Taylor was announced on June 14 that year.  Interestingly, the couple would have two daughters, Jayne and Audrey Meadows, who would well-known actresses.

New York society may have assumed that Frances Gordon Wendell would never wed.  But on January 24, 1920, she and U.S. Navy Lt. John Gilbert Marshall Stone were married in the parlor of 126 East 35th Street.  The bride was 29 years old.

Frances Cadwalader Elwyn Wendell died on June 19, 1929 at the age of 64.  Frances and John G. M. Stone remained in the 35th Street house until the fall of 1937.  On November 1 that year, The New York Sun reported that the Engineering Women's Club had leased the house, adding, "Mrs. Herbert Hoover is a member of the club."

The Women's Engineering Club opened its new clubhouse on December 1.  The New York Times explained that the club had been formed in 1928 "with a group of women who worked together in the first Presidential campaign of Herbert Hoover."  The article said, "it has served as an international center for women engineers and wives of engineers from all parts of the country and abroad."

The Women's Engineering Club remained in the house until 1941, when the Midhattan Realty, Inc. hired architect Stephen L. Heinrich to remodel it to apartments.  He removed the stoop, moved the entrance to the basement level, and converted the top floor to a tile covered mansard with a shed dormer.  Unlike many awkward remodelings at the time, Heinrich's design has a charming, cottage-like feel.

A subsequent renovation, completed in 1989, resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and former parlor floors, and a triplex on the upper floors.  Outwardly, the house is little changed since the 1941 make-over.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The Clarence C. Pell House - 24 East 35th Street

 
In 1860, Clarence C. Pell moved into the newly-build house at 24 East 35th Street, one of a handsome row of Anglo-Italianate homes.  Each 20 feet wide, the brownstone clad houses were four stories tall above a short English basement.  A prominent cornice above the first floor ran the length of the row.  Graceful cornices crowned the elliptically arched openings of the upper three floors. 

Pell was a partner with his brother, James Kent Pell, in an auction business at 109 Pearl Street.  They were descended from Thomas Pell who arrived in America in the 1630's.  Thomas Pell became the first Lord of Pelham Manor, which eventually became Pelham, New York, as well as parts of the Bronx and Westchester County.

Pell and his family left 24 East 35th Street in 1864.  The house became home to Louis Borg, who had been made Consul-General of France in August 1863.  

Borg filled the house with an impressive collection of artwork and antique French furniture.  The Evening Post remarked that his vast collection of paintings "were purchased at the sales of various celebrated galleries here and abroad."  He also had a notable collection of rare coins.

When Borg was recalled to France in the summer of 1867, a two-day auction was held in the house.  On August 13, following the first day's sales, The Evening Post reported that about 100 paintings had been sold, "and a sale of the remainder commenced this morning, and is being continued throughout the day."  Already sold were paintings by Dutch and Italian masters Cristofano Allori, Carlo Maratti, Jean de Baen, Francisco Albani, Cornelius van Poelenburgh, and Jacob van Ruisdael.

The article mentioned, "Notable among the furniture are a chair used by the first Napoleon on a state occasion at Malmaison, and an exquisite bronze and ormolu table and casket, once possessed by Marie Antoinette."  Borg had second thoughts about selling the chair, however.

The Empire style chair was one of a set of 10 designed by Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine in 1800 for Napoleon's Château de Malmaison near Paris.  After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, his brother Joseph fled to America, bringing along elaborate furnishings, including this chair.  In 1839 he gave it to the French Consul General, Felix Lacoste, and following his death, Borg purchased it.

Once in the château of Napoleon, this chair sat in 24 East 35th Street during Borg's residency.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Now, in 1867, Borg donated the chair to the New-York Historical Society, where it remains in its original condition today.

The enterprising Mary B. Sumner, the widow of George W. Sumner, leased 20, 22 and 24 East 35th Street and operated them as boarding houses.  (She lived at 20 West 35th Street.)  Her business-like advertisement on August 21, 1874 read, "20, 22 and 24 East Thirty fifth street--Three handsome suits for the winter or year, with or without private table; also single rooms; early application necessary; one extra Suit to let, transiently, until November 1."

Mary Sumner's boarders were professional.  In 1870 they included broker Albert Bellamy; lawyers Granville P. Hawes and George W. Vanslyck; Francis J. Heyderick, a provisions merchant; and physician James Converse Rising.

Dr. Rising and his family would board with Mary Sumner through 1880, when she relinquished the lease.  His son, Henry W. Rising, began working as a clerk in 1876.

John P. and Antoinette L. Edwards owned 24 East 35th Street, but never lived here.  They listed their permanent address as Bar Harbor, Maine.  In 1886, they leased the house to the Zeta Psi Fraternity.  The 1928 The Story of Zeta Psi recalled, "By April 15, 1886, the Club was pleasantly located at 24 East Thirty-fifth Street, and the modest beginnings were made of an institution which was to last for many years, although its existence was intermittent and its vicissitudes were many."

The move was made in time for the 40th annual convention of the fraternity.  It opened in the Murray Hill Hotel on January 6, 1887, "with headquarters at the Zeta Psi Club house, No. 24 East thirty-fifth-street," as reported by The New York Times.  Delegates had come from across the country.  The New York contingent hosted a theater party at the Bijou Opera House on the first night of the convention.  "After the performance the entire party was entertained at supper at the clubhouse by the Phi Chapter," said the article.  The University Quarterly called it, "a bountiful collation by Mazzetti."  (Louis F. Mazzetti was one of the premier society caterers, described by The New York Times as "a master of the mysteries of the cuisine.")

The fraternity moved out in 1889.  Edward Walsh Humphreys and his wife, the former Mary Duane, next leased 24 East 35th Street.  Mary made it a center of social activities.  Throughout their residency, her entertainments were regular fodder for the society pages.  On January 26, 1893, for instance, The New York World reported, "Mrs. Edward W. Humphreys, of No. 24 East Thirty-fifth street, gave her fourth and last reception yesterday afternoon."

On May 30, 1896, the Record & Guide reported that Antoinette L. Edwards had sold the house to Henry Wheeler DeForest for $46,500 (about $1.76 million in 2024).  The well-to-do bachelor was a partner with his brother Robert Weeks DeForest in the law firm of DeForest Brothers.  He was also the president of the Land & River Company and a director in the Central New Jersey Land Improvement Company.  His other brother, Lockwood DeForest, was a well-known painter and interior designer.

On August 22, 1898, DeForest married Julia Gilman Noyes, the daughter of a millionaire druggist.  Julia, who came from St. Paul, Minnesota, quickly threw herself into charitable causes and that year became chairman of the College Committee of The Woman's Medical College.

In 1899, author Rudyard Kipling and his family arrived in New York City.  They were staying at the Hotel Grenoble when, in February, Kipling fell gravely ill.  On March 3, the Newburgh (New York) Register reported on "Rudyard Kipling's progress toward convalescence," and mentioned that his young daughter, "Josephine has been taken to the home of Mrs. Julia de Forest, 24 East Thirty-fifth street, a friend of Mrs. Kipling, and the latest news about her was that she was 'doing well.'"

Later that year, the DeForests would have their first child, Julia Mary.  There would be three more children, Henry Jr., born in 1901; Charles Noyes, who arrived in 1905; and Alice Delano, born three years later.  The family's country house, Nethermuir, was in Cold Spring Harbor. 

In April 1906, Henry hired architect James B. Baker to make $5,000 in interior renovations to the house.  The following year the the DeForests leased it to Emma Kesselmark (who died here on October 25 that year).

On May 5, 1911, the New York Herald reported, "Lieutenant Commander Benjamin B. McCormick, U.S.N., and Mrs. McCormick have taken the house of Mr. Henry W. de Forest, at No. 24 East Thirty-fifth street."

The McCormicks' summer home was in Newport, Rhode Island.  Helen Miriam McCormick, like her predecessors, entertained often.  On February 12, 1914, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Benjamin B. McCormick, wife of Commander McCormick, U. S. N., gave an informal at home yesterday afternoon at her house, 24 East Thirty-fifth Street.  Her mother, Mrs. Charles R. Cornwall, received with her, and Miss Marie Louise Anderson and Mrs. Cammack were at the tea table."  (An "informal at-home" referred to friends dropping in for tea without invitations.)  Seven days later, the New-York Tribune reported, "Mrs. Benjamin B. McCormick gave the last of two receptions at her home, No. 24 East 35th street."

The DeForests sold the house to Gordon Woodbury and his wife, Charlotte around 1917.  (Henry DeForest would go on to be chairman of the board of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the president of the New York Botanical Garden.) 

Gordon Woodbury was born on September 17, 1863 in New York City and grew up in Bedford, New Hampshire.  He descended from the Woodburys who settled in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1624.  A Harvard-educated attorney, he had lost his 1916 bid to become a member of Congress.  

He and Charlotte had three children, Eliza Gordon, Peter, and George.  (Two other children, Martha Riddle and Margaret Orr, had died in infancy.)  The family maintained summer homes in Newport and in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Peter Woodbury was attending the Phillips  Academy in Andover, Massachusetts when the United States entered World War I.  He left school to join the U. S. Army.  The family received terrifying news in the fall of 1918.  He was a member of the Machine Gun Company of the 107th Infantry, and on September 30 was wounded in battle.  In reporting the incident, The New York Times noted on November 5, "He is 18 years of age."  (Peter Woodbury survived the war and became an attorney and judge.)

When Franklin D. Roosevelt resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1920 in order to run for Vice-President, Woodrow Wilson appointed Woodbury as Roosevelt's successor.  He would serve as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for seven months, from August 27, 1920 until March 9, 1921.

Woodbury (right) alongside Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels.  collection of the Library of Congress.

In 1921 Woodbury purchased the yacht Exen from its Norwegian owner and renamed it Half Moon.  Originally a racing yacht, it had been built as a wedding gift from Bertha Krupp to her husband, Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach.  Woodbury reportedly outfitted it with expensive furnishings and on January 4, 1922, announced plans for a cruise that "would take him through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal and thence to the islands of the South Seas," according to The New York World.

Gordon Woodbury's yacht, Half Moon.  Historisches Archiv Krupp

On January 30, 1922, the New York Herald received a dispatch from Newport that said, "Gordon Woodbury, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was swept over the rail of his yacht Half Moon forty miles off Cape Charles Friday night."  The vessel had run into a hurricane at about 10:00 that morning.  The article said, "The mainsail, compass, jibboom, and dinghy and a lifeboat were swept away within a few seconds of one another."

Woodbury and his crew hung on for "some hours" before a huge wave swept over the ship, washing all aboard into the sea.  One crew member, John Stolvig, was lost but, miraculously, everyone else survived by "clinging to the railing, the sidelashes and rudder."  Gordon Woodbury had been swept out to sea, "but was returned by a wave to the yacht."

The following morning the Japan Arrow, a Standard Oil tanker, happened upon the scene.  It rescued the men and towed the Half Moon to port.  Woodward recalled to reporters,

After that experience the crew, some members badly bruised up and all hungry and half frozen, managed to cling fast to articles on deck until about 9:30 this morning, when the Japan Arrow came by, giving the Half moon a line and taking the fagged out crew aboard.

Woodbury returned to New York in time for the announcement of Eliza Gordon Woodbury's engagement to Frederick Sherwood Dunn on March 19, 1922.  The New York Times mentioned, "Miss Woodbury graduated from Bryn Mawr, class of '19," and the New York Herald noted that she "served in Europe with the American Committee for Devasted France for two years."  The couple was married on September 30.

In 1941, after being converted to apartments, 24 East 35th Street was painted white.  (Next door is the stunning Thomas B. Clarke house, today's Collectors' Club.)  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Gordon and Charlotte were at the New Hampshire house in June 1924.  On June 16, Gordon dropped into William P. Goodman's bookstore and asked if he could address a letter.  He was shown to Goodman's private desk.  After a while, Goodman thought Woodbury was taking "a long time to write an address," according to The Boston Globe, so he checked on him.  The article said, "he raised [Woodbury's] head and found he was breathing feebly.  Hurried calls were sent for doctors, two responding, but on their arrival Mr. Woodbury was dead."  In reporting his death, The Boston Globe described Gordon Woodbury as "one of the foremost men of New Hampshire, ex-assistant secretary of the Navy, editor and publisher, legislator, sailor, author, man of letters, agriculturalist, and athlete."

Charlotte Woodbury sold 24 East 35th Street five months later, in November.  The house was quickly converted to apartments.  A subsequent renovation, completed in 2005, resulted in a two-family home.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The Alfred W. Erickson House - 110 East 35th Street

In 1855, Henry H. Butterworth and Washington A. Cronk completed construction of six narrow homes along the south side of East 35th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues--each slightly different than its fraternal siblings.  Butterworth owned the plots and Cronk, who was a builder, erected the residences.  Four stories tall, their Anglo-Italianate design featured short stoops that led to the double-doored entrances.  Floor-to-ceiling windows graced the second floor levels and individual cornices completed their designs.

Among them was 58 East 38th Street (renumbered 110 in 1868).  Its first owner was Charles Harvey, a dealer in furnaces on Sixth Avenue.  In 1863, his son Willard went into the paper business on Maiden Lane.  The Willard family moved far uptown to 120th Street and Second Avenue the following year.

The John Colton family next occupied the house.  Colton did not list a profession in directories, suggesting he had retired.  Henry Colton, however, was most definitely employed.  In 1856 he opened the Fashion Course on Long Island--a modish race track.  On June 18, 1856, The New York Times commented, "The Club stand opposite to that of the Judges' is fitted up in a fancy style.  To the left of the Club stand is that for ladies and strangers.  Saloons, a reception room, dressing rooms, &c, have been abundantly provided."

Currier & Ives captured "The Celebrated Trotting Horse John Stewart" on Fashion Course around 1868.  from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum

The expense of building and maintaining the Fashion Course was significant.  On June 23, 1860, The New York Times commented, "To Mr. Henry Colton are we New-Yorkers indebted for this racy carnival; but which we are sorry to say, has not been patronized to an extent which will remunerate him for the great outlay he has incurred."  

Eventually, it seems, Colton was forced to liquidate.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on March 1, 1870 read, "$7000--To Rent or Lease, Fashion Course, or for sale, with all the improvements.  For further information apply to D. C. Grinnell, on the premises, or to H. Colton, 110 East Thirty-fifth st."

The Colton family remained through 1872, after which 110 East 35th Street became home to Kenney Couillard, Jr. and his wife, the former Clara Cole.  Born in Bucksport, Massachusetts in 1814, Captain Couillard was a member of the Council of American Shipmasters' Association, and a member of the Finance Committee of the Seamen's Fund and Retreat on Staten Island.

Captain Kenney Couillard, Jr. died on April 28, 1874.  His funeral was held in the house on March 2 at 4:00.  Clara Couillard left the following year.  On September 5, 1876, an announcement in The New York Times read, "Miss M. A. Clark will reopen her school for young ladies and children, at No. 110 East 35th st., Sept. 25.  Applications, personally or by letter, will be received at the above place from 12 to 6 P.M."

Miss M. A. Clark's English and French School for Young Ladies and Little Girls did not last especially long at the address.  On August 22, 1878, an advertisement in the New York Herald offered, "Murray Hill--To Lease to private family, small brown stone House, beautiful order throughout."

In 1880, the family of Frank H. Norton occupied the house, possibly leasing it from James P. Cloherty.  Norton was an editor, playwright and author.

James P. and Susan Cloherty and their adult daughter Lizzie occupied the house the following year.  Interestingly, while the family was involved in education--Susan and Lizzie Cloherty were teachers and James as assistant principal of Evening School No. 38--they were obviously affluent.  An inventory of the house in 1887 included, "rich household furniture, made by Marcotte, Roux and other celebrated makers," and in 1894 James P. Cloherty loaned the portrait of Princess Charlotte by Thomas Gainsborough to an exhibition at the National Academy of Design for the benefit of the St. John's Guild and Orthopaedic Hospital.

By then, however, Susan Cloherty had died and in 1888 James had sold the house to attorney Charles Howland Russell.  He was a partner in Stetson, Jennings & Russell.  Born in 1851 to Caroline Howland and Charles H. Russell, he graduated from the Columbia Law School in 1874.  A bachelor, he shared the house with his unmarried brother, S. Howland Russell.

Like the Clohertys, the brothers filled the house with fine art.  In 1890, S. Howland Russell donated the emotionally moving painting Heart's Ease, painted by William Parsons Winchester Dana in 1863, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Heart's Ease.  from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1890, Charles married Jane Brinsmade Potter, the daughter of Bishop Henry C. Potter.  Two years later, on April 19, 1892, S. Howland Russell died at the age of 39.  Charles and Jane sold 110 East 35th Street in 1899.

The house became the center of social attention in 1900.  Mrs. Pauline F. Baring was living here on October 8 when her engagement to Baron F. Ortmans de Senechal of Paris was announced in The New York Times.  The article might have raised the eyebrows of neighbors on East 35th Street when it mentioned, "Mrs. Baring, whose first husband was a relative of the English bankers of that name, came here from London three years ago and bought a house at 110 East Thirty-fifth Street, where she has since resided."

The Times said, "Baron de Senechal is a bachelor, thirty-nine years old, and comes from an ancient French house...This is his first visit to the United States, and he met his bride-to-be in this city only a few months ago."

Two days later, The New York Times published a follow-up article, which said the announcement...

has created something of a sensation among the members of the Calumet Club, where the Baron has been received as a guest for several months past.  According to several members the announcement caused apparently as much surprise to the Baron himself as to his friends in the club.  It was said at the club last night that the Baron had in a rage stated that the announcement was made by Mrs. Baring entirely without his authorization; that no engagement existed; and that no marriage would take place.

The article added further mystery by saying, "Little was known about Mrs. Baring, except that she was known for a time as Mrs. Blackmar."  It mentioned, "The Baron was inaccessible to reporters last night.  Mrs. Baring refused to see reporters who called."  The wedding, not unexpectedly, did not take place and the enigmatic Pauline Baring quickly moved on.

The house was purchased by Charles Clerc Deming.  Like Charles Howland Russell, he was a bachelor and an attorney.  And like Russell, he married soon after moving in.  On June 4, 1902, he married Mabel Frances Wilson in Hartford, Connecticut.

Deming earned his law degree at Columbia Law School in 1875.  In 1892 he was elected vice-president of the Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad Company.  He was a partner in the law firm of Alexander & Green.

It was not uncommon for monied New Yorkers to lease their homes occasionally during the winter social season.  But it appears that the Demings never occupied the East 35th Street house in the winter.  Year after year they leased it.  Robert Van Cortlandt and his wife, for instance, occupied the house every winter season from 1902 through 1905.  Samuel Milbanks and his wife leased the house each winter from 1916 through 1921 when they moved into their newly-built house at 117 East 65th Street.

It was not only during the winter season that the Demings traveled.  On June 17, 1922, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Deming of 110 East Thirty-fifth Street, are sailing today on the Lapland for a three months' tour of England, Scotland and Germany."

The house was purchased by Alfred W. and Anna E. Erickson around 1926.  Erickson was the owner of an advertising agency.  He would later co-found the agency McCann-Erickson, one of the largest advertising firms in the world.  The couple hired the architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich to make interior and exterior alterations.

Delano & Aldrich's alterations did not greatly effect the exterior.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house where a Thomas Gainsborough once hung was about to receive an even greater masterpiece.  On November 12, 1928, Alfred Erickson purchased Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer from the Duveen gallery.  According to Joseph Heller in his article "The Last Laugh" in the September 1988 issue of The Connoisseur, "The price was $750,000."  (That amount would translate to about $1.9 million in 2024.)

According to Heller, Duveen lamented, "I am really losing money by selling it so cheaply now, for certainly it soon will be worth very much more."  

Erickson could not have foreseen the Stock Market crash that was to come the following year.  Exactly two years to the day after buying the painting, Erickson was back at Duveen's on November 12, 1930 to sell it.  When Duveen offered $500,000--a quarter of a million less than Erickson had paid--the ad man complained, "You assured me that the work would increase in value."

Joseph Heller wrote, "'These are difficult times now, Mr. Erickson,' responded Duveen.  'We are living in the Great Depression.'"

Erickson reportedly answered, "I think I know that."

Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer was the centerpiece of the Erickson collection.  from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The masterwork never was far from Erickson's thoughts.  He returned to Duveen in February 1936, having recovered financially, and re-purchased the Rembrandt for $590,000, "the difference of $90,000 representing charges for interest and the New York sales, tax," according to Heller.

Alfred W. Erickson died on November 2, 1936.  He left the house and its magnificent collection of art--the highlight of which, of course, was the Rembrandt--to Anna.

Anna E. Erickson died in the East 35th Street house in 1961.  A public sale of the art collection was held later that year at the Parke-Bernet Galleries.  The 24 paintings were expected to "bring at least $3,000,000."  Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer was sold within four minutes to the Metropolitan Museum of art for $2.3 million.

After having been home to monied families for more than a century, in 1963 the basement and first floor of 110 East 35th Street were converted to classrooms for the Adams School.  The top three floors were "to be occupied by owner exclusively," according to the Department of Buildings.  One of the school's three locations, 110 East 35th Street was the "lower school" for children aged 6 through 12.  An advertisement in 1974 explained the classes focused on "learning disabilities, perceptual problems" and "the emotional or unmotivated."

Another renovation completed in 1984 replaced the school portion of the house with a private club.  Then, in 2002, it was returned to a single family home.

photograph by the author 

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The 1860 William and Caroline Birdsall House - 129 East 35th Street

 

Thomas Crane and Alexander McDonald--a granite merchant and stone cutter respectively--got into real estate development by erecting a row of five high-end homes on the south side of East 35th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues.  Completed in 1860, they reflected the increasing affluence of the Murray Hill neighborhood.

Among the row was 81 East 35th Street (renumbered 129 in 1867).  Nearly identical to its neighbors, it featured brawny stone stoop newels and railings with urn-shaped balusters.  The double-doored, arched entrance was crowned with an impressive arched pediment supported by sumptuously carved brackets.  Four stories tall above the English basement, the home's design was completed by an elaborate cornice featured foliate brackets and frieze panels of flowers and leaves.

The house was purchased by William Birdsall, Jr. and his wife Caroline W. Birdsall during construction.  The 37-year-old Birdsall was a partner in Cromwell & Birdsall, flour merchants.  His father, William, Sr., had died just months earlier, on July 30, 1859, leaving William and his siblings a significant inheritance.

When William and Caroline moved into 81 East 35th Street, the family of James Cumings was living across the street at 72 East 35th Street.  In 1865, when the Birdsalls moved to Brooklyn, James and Laura Melissa Shaw Cumings purchased the Birdsalls' home.

Cumings was the owner of the Columbian Foundry and president of the Morris & Cumings Dredging Company.  The New York Herald called him, "well known to all old New Yorkers and his active life is contemporaneous with the rapid development of the city."  Born in 1803, he entered the iron business as an apprentice to Robert McQueen in the Columbian Foundry.  In 1832, McQueen turned the business over to Cumings and his partner Peter Morris.

James and Laura had five children, James Maurice, Joseph, Mary Ida, Laura and Ira T.  When his parents purchased the house, James Maurice Cumings enrolled in the New York City College.  He and his brothers Ira and Joseph would enter their father's business.

The population of 129 East 35th Street increased following Mary Ida Cuming's marriage to Rev. Zina Doty in 1875.  The groom was born in Middletown, Ohio in 1843.  He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1867 and was admitted to the bar in Dayton, Ohio.  After relocating to New York City to practice law, he changed course, entering the General Theological Seminary and graduating in 1873.  He was made rector of St. Ambrose's Church.  The couple had a son, James Cumings Doty, in 1876.

Laura M. Cumings died on October 6, 1879.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on October 9.  Two months later, almost to the day, James Cumings died at the age of 77 on December 7.  His funeral took place here on December 10.

Two years later, on November 11, 1881, the Cumings siblings sold 129 East 35th Street to Stephen B. French for $21,250 (about $653,000 in 2024 terms).  French resold it the following month to Jeremiah Andrews.  By 1885, Andrews was renting the house to 20-year-old Rignal Duckett Woodward.

The wealthy bachelor, who was attending the Columbia School of Political Science in 1885, came from a colonial Maryland family.  His father, Rignal T. Woodward, was described by The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography as, "one of the largest planters and most influential men in the locality where he resided.  Abington Farms was an ancestral home and had been in the Woodward family for a number of generations."

It was most likely during Rignal Woodward's occupancy that the stone stoop railings were replaced with handsome, updated cast iron versions, intricate openwork iron newels and matching, tall areaway fencing.  

The original stoop railings and newels can be seen next door in this 1941 photo.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Rignal married Carolyn Atwater Goddard on June 19, 1890 in her parents spacious apartment in the Osborne.  Despite being a home wedding, there were eight bridesmaids (coming from as far away as California and Toronto), and seven ushers.  The Sun said the bridesmaids, "all wore old fashioned mull gowns and carried bunches of wood flowers."

Carolyn was the daughter of Colonel Calvin Goddard, a Civil War veteran and treasurer of the Wells Fargo Company.  Following his death on April 3, 1892, her mother, Caroline Atwater Goddard, moved in with the couple.  Rignal's maternal aunt, also lived in the house.  In an article about the Woman's Protective League on January 7, 1894, The World mentioned, "Miss Raborg is another hard worker."  Getting the family relationship slightly wrong, the article said she "resides with her sister, Mrs. Rignal Woodward, at No. 129 East Thirty-fifth Street."  It continued, "Miss Raborg has given her life over to charity, but is nevertheless very shy and retiring."

The family's country home was in Wallingford, Connecticut.  While Rignal held a law degree and was a partner in Woodward & Mayer, he was deeply involved in politics.  But when he became the target of a politically-driven scandal in 1895, he simply walked away.  On April 10, The Sun reported on his resignation "as a member of the Executive Committee of the Grace Democracy and as Chairman of the organization in the Twenty-first Assembly district."  The article said, "Mr. Woodward is tired of active politics, and John F. Lynch...has had much to do with his tired feeling."  Lynch, who had been vice-chairman of the committee had charged Rignal with embezzlement.  An investigation cleared him, finding that "the charges were the result of a personal difference between the two men," said The Sun.  Nevertheless, Rignal walked away from politics.

In March 1895, Jeremiah Andrews sold 129 East 35th Street to attorney Thomas Thacher.  (Despite having lived here for a decade, the Woodwards apparently did not want to buy.)  Thacher was an 1871 graduate of Yale and a partner in the law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Barnum.

A terrifying incident took place here on March 1, 1897.  At 7:30 that night, the doorbell rang.  A maid, Agnes Kelly, answered the door to find a revolver pointed at her head.  Frank Linden grabbed Thacher's overcoat--valued at more than $1,520 in today's money--from the hall tree and fled.  Two hours later, the career thief held up Margaret Norris in Central Park.

Agnes Kelly gave a description of Linden and later made an identification of the man who had threatened her and stole the coat.  Unfortunately for Walter Taylor, he was a dead-ringer for Frank Linden and was locked up on Agnes's identification.

But the maid was called back to police headquarters on March 18 following the arrest of Frank Linden.  Seeing the two men side by side, she was now "unable to say which of the two men had robbed the house," reported The New York World.  Under intense questioning, however, Linden confessed and Taylor was freed.

The Thachers remained here until February 1900 when Edward Rufus Adee and his wife, the former Geraldine Fitzgerald, purchased the house for $40,000.  The couple had a three-year-old daughter, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and on June 19, 1902 a son, William Townsend, was born.

Edward Rufus Adee (original source unknown)

Born in Westchester County in 1863, Adee was educated in private schools and graduated from Yale in 1885.  He and Geraldine were married in 1897.  He had been involved with the Mercantile Trust Company since graduating from Yale, and had risen to vice president.  Adee's affluence was reflected in his memberships to the Union, Tuxedo, Lawyers' and Westchester Country clubs, and in the family's summer home, Almost Brook, in fashionable Tuxedo, New York.

Late in 1903, Ernest became ill with septicemia, or blood poisoning.  He died in the house on December 13 at the age of 40.  

Following her period of mourning, Geraldine Adee threw herself into charitable, civic, and political causes.  She became president of the Babies Hospital of New York and of the Home for Young Girls in the Bronx, as well as the Committee of the State Charities Aid Association.  She was president of the women's auxiliary of Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, secretary of the United Associations of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and chairman of the New York Committee for the National Cathedral.

Beginning with the winter social season of 1915, however, much of her attention was focused on Geraldine's coming out.  On August 21, 1915, the New-York Tribune reported, "Miss Geraldine F. Adee, daughter of Mrs. Ernest R. Adee, of 129 East Thirty-fifth Street, will be among the debutantes of the coming winter.  She is now the guest of her aunt, Mrs. Eugene Sugny Reynal, in Newport."

With the winter season in full swing, on February 8, 1916, the New York Press reported, "This evening Mrs. M. Dwight Collier of No. 14 East Sixty-fifth street will give a theatre party, followed by supper and dancing in Sherry's, in honor of Miss Geraldine F. Adee, the debutante daughter of Mrs. Ernest R. Adee of No. 129 East Thirty-fifth street.  The guests will be from the debutante sets and additional guests have been invited for the supper and dancing."

Marriage in society often closely followed a young woman's coming out.  But Geraldine's marriage to Francis B. Bradley would have to wait until the end of World War I.  Bradley would have graduated from Harvard in 1919, but he left school to enlist in the U.S. Navy.  Ironically, he served on the U.S.S. Harvard.  On October 25, 1919, Geraldine Adee announced her daughter's engagement.  The Evening World mentioned, "Miss Adee has been prominent in the Junior League since she was introduced about three years ago."

The wedding took place in "the picturesque Church of St. Mary's at Tuxedo Park," as reported by The New York Times.  Following the ceremony a wedding breakfast and reception was held at Almost Brook with "all of the colonists of the park [i.e. Tuxedo Park] attending," said the article.

Geraldine now sold 129 East 35th Street to Dr. Beverley Robinson and his wife, Anna Foster, and moved permanently to Almost Brook, where she died at the age of 83 on May 5, 1956.

Dr. Robinson had a sterling pedigree.  Both his parents, Moncure Robinson and Charlotte Randolph Taylor, were considered members of "the First Families of Virginia."  A member of the Century Association, Dr. Robinson was a clinical lecturer on "Heart, Lungs and Throat" at Belleview Hospital Medical Center.

Dr. Beverley Robinson, from the collection of the Lillian & Clarence de la Chapelle Medical Archives.

Anna Foster Robinson died on January 3, 1921.  Her funeral was held in St. Bartholomew's Church two days later.

Late the following month, Robinson was "attacked with synovitis of the right shoulder joint and severe neuritis of the shoulder and upper arm," according to his self-diagnosis.  After self treatment "with the aid of two best consultants" and achieving no relief, he decided to rub laudanum on the afflicted areas.  A mixture of opium, morphine, codeine and other agents, laudanum was, understandably, controlled as a narcotic.  To obtain the drug, Robinson would have to fill out paperwork; but his affliction prevented him from writing.

He, therefore, asked his pharmacist (whom he had known for years) to fill out the application and have his nurse sign it for him.  The druggist refused his request.  Robinson wrote a letter to the editor of the Medical Record which was published on February 12, 1921.  He said in part, "I am an old practitioner and believe my character and reputation are unblemished and yet I can not have, in dire emergency of extreme pain, a local anodyne, which is a narcotic, to relieve me locally."  He ended his letter lamenting, "Alas, the shame, the pity, and the crying outrage of it all!"

Dr. Beverley Robinson survived his wife by three years.  He died on June 21, 1924 in the East 35th Street house at the age of 81.  

The Robinsons' unmarried daughter, Pauline Lentilhon Robinson, remained in the house.  She maintained the lifestyle of a well-to-do socialite.  On May 23, 1925, for instance, The New York Times reported that she "sailed early this morning on the Majestic to pass the Summer in Europe," and four months later, on September 19, the newspaper reported, "Miss Pauline Robinson, who passed the Summer in England, Scotland and France, returned on the Olympic and is at her home, 129 East Thirty-fifth Street for the Winter."

Pauline's routine continued for years.  On September 17, 1930, The New York Times reported that she "has been at the Madison since returning from Europe last week, [and] opened her house at 129 East Thirty-fifth street yesterday."

It is unclear when Pauline Robinson left East 35th Street.  A renovation completed in 1998 greatly updated the interiors.  Still a single-family home, in 2007 its façade was restored, windows replaced and the roof repaired.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com