Charles E. Birge's 1912 11 East 47th Street

 

The wealth of attorney John Graham was evidenced in 1872 when he charged Edward H. Stokes a retainer of $10,000 (more than a quarter of a million in 2023 dollars) to defend him for the murder of James Fisk.  The famous lawyer lived for years in the four-story, high-stooped brownstone residence at 11 East 47th Street, just east of Fifth Avenue.

By the turn of the century the Midtown neighborhood changed, as commerce took over the former mansion district.  On July 15, 1911, the 25-foot-wide house was sold to Henry C. Trumbower, who lived in Philadelphia.  He demolished the venerable residence and hired architect Charles E. Birge to design a six-story loft and store building on the site.  

Completed the following year, Birge's prim tripartite, neo-Federal design included a stone base where engaged Doric columns flanked the entrance to the upper floors.  The four-story midsection was clad in brown Flemish bond brick and trimmed in white marble.  The molded cornice of the grouped windows of the second floor rose and fell to accommodate a handsomely-carved neo-classical panel.  The top section sat above a marble bandcourse, its openings separated by Scamozzi pilasters and fronted by iron balconies.  A marble cornice completed the design.

Among the initial tenants was Madame S. Schartz, who leased the second and third floors for her corset factory.  Called by The Corset and Underwear Review as the "well known corsetiere," she moved her business into the building on February 1, 1912.  She would remain here at least through 1915.

The ground floor space was home to the gentleman's tailoring shop of Herman Conley.  He had relocated his business from Boston to New York around 1899 and was a favorite of wealthy young men.  In 1913, The New York Times mentioned that Conley "is said to know more college men than any other tradesman in the country."

In the early years of the 20th century, the private lives of businessmen like Herman Conley who catered to the carriage trade were open to public scrutiny.  And so in the spring of 1913, when he separated from his wife of 14 years, newspapers took notice.  Things worsened in July when Herman filed for divorce. 

The New York Times had happier news to report on November 28, however.  An article noted, "Friends made repeated efforts to bring them together and finally a meeting was arranged yesterday."  The newspaper reported that Herman Conley and his wife "had their Thanksgiving dinner together."  Herman told the reporter, "Our troubles are at an end and I wish our friends would forget that there ever had been a case of Conley vs. Conley."

Herman Conley's gentlemen's tailoring business was replaced by the Green Shop Company in 1916, a ladies' tailoring business.  As Conley's had done, the shop catered to an elite clientele.  When management advertised for a dressmaker and a fitter on March 14, 1920, it stressed, "one accustomed to high class work only."

In the meantime, after Madame Schwartz left, the upper floors were leased as offices.  In 1915 the headquarters of the American Polish Relief Committee were here, and in 1920 the office of architect William Henry Deacy and the

"administrative offices and designing rooms" of the Presbrey-Leland Company leased the sixth floor.

William Deacy and the Presbrey-Leland Company were inextricably connected.  In addition to his private architectural practice, until 1920 he was architect in charge of the studio of the W. W. Leland Company, a leader in "cemetery art."  Upon its merger with the former competitor Presbrey-Coykendall Co., Deacy was appointed Director of Design "over a corps of creative artists and architectural draughtsmen," according to an announcement.

An advertisement in Park and Cemetery in September 1920 noted, "A paramount policy of the Presbrey-Leland Company is the awakening of a national interest in the Cemetery Beautiful."  

William Henry Deacy designed this monument at 11 East 47th Street in 1920.  from The Monument News, January 1921.

Society dressmaker Madame Lisbet Boses leased an upper floor space in August 1922, and by 1926 the ground floor store was home to The Arthur M. Rosenberg Co., gentlemen tailors.  As Herman Conley had done, the store catered to the younger set.  An advertisement in The Columbia Spectator on October 14, 1926 noted, "For thirty years Rosenberg tailoring has been considered the authoritative college style."  The tradition of high-end custom clothes continued in the shop when Olson & Daly tailors took the space around 1934.  An advertisement in February 1935 touted, "Clothes of distinctive yet conservative style--English and Scotch woollens used exclusively."

The appearance of the former brownstone mansion can be gleaned from the surviving, altered houses on either side of 11 East 47th Street in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In the spring of 1945, John K. Dennis, Michael Lee, Peter Huppert and Otto Kapper, owners of Partners Jewelry, Inc., purchased 11 East 47th Street.  On March 28, The New York Times reported, "The buyers expect to occupy a part of the building for their own business."  

The store, expectedly, became home to Partners Jewelry which marketed "watches and jewelry of distinction."  It sold other high-end items, as well, like the sterling silver mint julep cup and ice tongs available in October 1946.  Together, the items were priced at $50, or $750 today.

The new owners leased the upper floor offices to tenants like Kenneth Ives & Co., real estate brokers, and the Bing Cronin Personnel Service.

The 1970s saw the travel agency Flight Management Ltd. in one of the offices.  The firm advertised flights to London for "less than $100 by jet" in New York magazine on December 20, 1971, noting, "No time limits on when you can travel.  No age limit.  No extra charges."  Also in the building at the time was the Geothermal Energy Institute, which sought to provide naturally produced, renewable energy worldwide.

As the 20th century drew to a close, the ground floor space where well-heeled New Yorkers once ordered custom-made apparel became the Katsu-Hama Restaurant.  The Japanese restaurant received a glowing review from The New York Times food critic Eric Asimov on February 24, 1999, although he bristled, "Katsu-Hama is not an easy restaurant to find, even though it is in the middle of a busy block in midtown Manhattan."

Asimov's frustration has been relieved and in 2023 Katsu-Hama has signage to alert patrons to its location.  While Charles E. Birge's 110-year-old building could use a gentle cleaning, its architectural integrity is nearly perfectly intact.

photographs by the author

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

The 1932 Mercantile Library - 17 East 47th Street

 

A For Sale sign hangs on the facade in 2023.

In the 1880s, Cornelius Vanderbilt DeForest and his wife Catherine lived in the high-stooped brownstone at 17 East 47th Street.  They were followed in the house by Jordan L. Mott and his wife, the former Katherine Jerome Purdy, and then by J. Hopkins Smith, Jr. and his wife, Pauline Morton.  The Smiths had been married in 1906, after having met at the White House.  Pauline's father was Paul Morton, Secretary of the Navy.

At the time of the Smiths' wedding, the Mercantile Library was located in Clinton Hall (the former Astor Place Opera House) at 13 Astor Place.   The venerable institution had opened in February 1821 at 49 Fulton Street and moved into the Astor Street building in 1854.  It was established as a reading room and library for young clerks, just beginning their business careers.  By the time of the Astor Place move, it boasted a library of 120,000 volumes.

In 1915 J. Hopkins Smith, Jr. had the East 47th Street residence renovated for business purposes, and in 1932 sold it to the Mercantile Library as the site of its new home.  The trustees  demolished the old brownstone and hired architect Henry Otis Chapman to design its replacement.

Completed before the end of the year, the eight story, neo-Renaissance style structure was clad in white marble.  The New York Times said it "shows a simple classic tendency, in keeping with the purposes for which it will be used."  

Two Renaissance style doorways with broken pediments and urns flanked a double-height window.  Between the second and third floors, the library's name was engraved into the marble, flanked by two large rosettes.  A row of elaborately carved rosettes and pendants ran below the third floor cornice.  The mid-section featured four-story fluted piers, rosettes, and wreaths.  Below the delicate terminal cornice was a border of intricately carved ribbons and swags.  

On September 29, 1932, The Daily Star reported that the building was nearly completed and moving day was scheduled for December 15.  The logistics of "seeing that 250,000 volumes are treated kindly by the moving men" were under the control of librarian Florence Garing.  The article said, "For several weeks she has been as busy choosing furniture, planning decorations, determining grain of marble and generally supervising the household--or should one say, 'libraryhold''--arrangements for the new home of the many books and records of New York's second oldest book-lending institution."

The New York Times explained that the first floor would house the general reception room and delivery desk.  "The second floor will be used for reading rooms which, in design and furnishings, will be suggestive more of a club than a commercial library," said the article.  The third floor held the librarian's office and the trustee room, and the upper floors were devoted to book stacks.

A housewarming was held on January 7, 1933.  To use the library, one had to be a member.  But, as had been the case in 1821, the membership fee was nominal.  In his report on March 17, 1935, Arthur G. Peacock, president of the Mercantile Library Association, noted, "Each member costs the library two or three times what he pays," and cautioned, "this cannot go on forever."  The library relied heavily on support from the Clinton Hall Association of New York.

By the 1970s, the membership fee was $24 a year.  On October 20, 1975, Thomas Lask of The New York Times described what that $24 entitled the members to:

Smack in the middle of bustling Manhattan, right off Fifth Avenue, in fact, is an oasis of calm, where one can relax in an armchair in clublike surroundings, with a statue of Shakespeare brooding over the fireplace, can sip a cup of tea while scanning The Times Literary Supplemental or The National Geographic, and where, at the end of the stay, he or she can borrow the latest best seller, a fistful of whodunits or a book on a subject being researched.

When Lask wrote the article, the Mercantile Library and the Clinton Hall Association were experiencing financial trouble.  Around 1971, he said, "the inflationary pinch began to be felt severely."  Richard T. Brice, president of the board, said the library would "like to increase its membership to 2,500," from the current 1,400.

Among the members at the time were brothers Paul and David Hofstein.  The men would meet here each Monday morning and, according to The New York Times journalist Kathleen Teltsch, would "spend the morning contentedly reading from the library's rich store of books" in the members' lounge.  David was a tax consultant and Paul worked for the post office.  Their Mondays were free.

The Mercantile Library began a lecture series to increase income.  On March 12, 1975, for instance, George T. Simon gave a lecture with slides and recordings on the life and career of bandleader Glenn Miller.  

In 1982 the Mercantile Writers' Studio was added, described by The New York Times as including, "well-lighted individual spaces, storage units for typewriters and manuscripts, a reference collection, and automatic membership in the library."   The 14 studio spaces were leased for three months at a time for $100.  By then annual membership dues in the library proper had risen to $45.

The Hofstein brothers' decades-long tradition of Monday mornings in the Mercantile Library ended with Paul's death at the age of 77 on May 16, 1986.  On December 13 that year, David donated a glass and mahogany wall clock in his brother's memory.  He told The New York Times reporter Kathleen Teltsch, "The old clock in the library's reading room had simulated chimes, which seemed incongruous and did not really belong there.  I wanted the clock to make a statement as a remembrance of my brother's love of books and the world he brought me into."

The Mercantile Library, known familiarly as "the Merc," continued to experience fiscal problems.  On September 6, 1989, The New York Times reported that it had "stopped its services as a circulating library in mid-August, although its members still have the use of the gracious second-floor reading room, adorned with busts of eminent literary figures and illuminated by 14 chandeliers."  The article said that after the increase in yearly dues, membership had fallen from 1,600 to 420.  At the time, the library's operating budget was $300,000 a year, and its income was $200,000.

Donations funded two renovations.  A $100,000 renovation of the first floor in 1998 by the architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Belle removed old linoleum and fluorescent lighting.  The following year the marble facade was cleaned, and in 2001 the second floor reading room was refreshed.  Nevertheless, library officials recognized, as Arthur G. Peacock had warned in 1935, "this cannot go on forever."

On May 23, 2008, Eric Konigsberg wrote in The New York Times that the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction (the name the organization took in 2005) "is in the process of selling its building at 17 East 47th Street...and will be shutting down in the coming weeks."  (In fact, the Clinton Hall Association was the seller, having held title since 1932.)  The following month journalist Lily Koppel reported on the packing process, saying somewhat wistfully, "Above an ornate iron staircase, marble busts of past presidents and members watch over the reading room of the Mercantile Library, with its molded fireplace and grand piano.  It is an elegant space befitting one of the three private libraries remaining in New York City."  She noted, "Many of the library's nonfiction holdings have been sold off and donated, like books on maritime history and botany."

The Mercantile Library moved to Brooklyn.  The marble building on East 47th Street still dons a sign offering the property for sale.  Recently architect George Boyle submitted plans for the Clinton Hall Association for the proposed The Merc Hotel.  The renovated building would rise 16 floors, the additional eight stories set back from the original cornice.

George Boyle Architect's rendering of the proposed renovations.  via skyscrapercenter.com

photographs by the author

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The Lost Church of the Holy Family - 321-323 East 47th Street

The church was flanked by a factory and a squalid tenement in June of 1930.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The neighborhood around 47th Street near the East River was a gritty one in the 19th century.  In 1884 plans were filed for a "storage warehouse" to be build on the site of a stables building at Nos. 321 and 323 East 47th Street.  By World War I the Clausen-Flanagan brewery engulfed Nos. 303 through 323 East 47th Street, uncomfortable bedfellows with with St. Anthony's Chapel at the corner of Second Avenue.

To serve the growing Italian population of the East Side neighborhood, St. Boniface's Church established the chapel in 1915.  The New York Times explained that the pastor "received permission to begin special work among the Italians by opening St. Anthony's Chapel."  The school hall of St. Boniface's was used for Sunday services under the direction of Father Daniel de Nonno.

St. Boniface's Church held services in English and German.  But the Italian population in the parish was exploding.  A 1924 census listed 9,000 Italians in the immediate neighborhood.  Father de Nonno lobbied the Archdiocese for a separate parish to serve them. 

On January 25, 1925 The New York Times reported Hayes "has established a new church in the Grand Central zone.  It is an Italian parish, and property on the north side of East forty-seventh Street, from 315 to 323 has been purchased.  On the site will be the Church of the Holy Family, and the Rev. Daniel De Nonno has been named pastor."  The article noted "Father De Nonno, who has long been an assistant at St. Boniface's, has been intimately associated with the development of the Italian branch."

The site acquired for the church structure was the old brewery.  The bleak conditions of the neighborhood was evidenced two months afterwards when a five-story tenement building, directly across the street, was set ablaze by an arsonist.  On March 23, 1925 The Times explained "The house had been freshly painted and the flames, which started in a baby carriage in the first floor hallway, mounted so rapidly that the escape of many tenants was cut off."

Tragic stories played out as fire fighters tried to rescue the tenants and squelch the inferno.  The Times recounted, for instance, "Mrs. [Patrick] Walsh, with her baby in her arms, stood at the rear window of their apartment on the fourth floor, where they were burned to death.  It was impossible to reach them.  Her scrams for help grew gradually fainter and finally ceased as she fell backward, still clutching the body of her son."  Katherine Walsh was 25-years old and her baby, Joseph, was just 17 months.

As the the drama played out, Father de Nonno and Father Patrick F. O'Connor "said prayers for the dead over the bodies of the victims after the fire was under control."

Three weeks after the that tragedy Father de Nonno was honored with a testimonial dinner at the Biltmore Hotel.  It resulted in donations of $17,500 for the erection of a church structure.  And the special needs of the blue collar parishioners had not been overlooked.  Reporters were advised "A kindergarten, where working mothers can leave their children during the day, will be established on the roof of the building." 

The completed structure, a modern blend of historic styles, was dedicated in April 1927.  Its brick and stone facade edged up to the property line, necessitating the wide set of entrance stairs to be recessed within the structure, rather than introducing it.  The triple entrance sat below a massive stained glass window within a rounded arch.  A handsome bell tower with triple arcades and a pyramidal roof sat five stories above the sidewalk.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In his first sermon in the church, Father de Nonno chose to ignore the brewery and focus on the old 1870's stable.  He noted the appropriateness of a stable site; since the Holy Family was formed in a stable.

On January 18, 1931 a shrine to Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers, was dedicated.  The New York Times commented "the movement for the establishment of the shrine was started by chauffeurs and garage workers of the neighborhood." It was the beginning of a movement.  With a few weeks the congregation began alterations to convert the basement "as a clubroom for automobilists," according to The New York Times.  

And then Father de Nonno took the concept of the patron saint of travelers a step further.

For generations on the Feast Day of St. Francis Manhattan parish priests had blessed the thousands of horses that pulled delivery wagons, coaches, carriages and other vehicles.  On Sunday, February 8 Father de Nonno preformed the first Blessing of the Automobiles.

The New York Times reported "The protective spirit of St. Christopher, friend of the traveler, was invoked for New Yorkers...While a crowd stood bareheaded in the rain, sixty automobiles packed in East forty-seventh Street, between First and Second Avenues, were blessed in the name of the saint, who lived in the third century."

Father de Nonno used a relic of the saint, a small bone within a reliquary, in the ceremony.  The crowd of 200 and the automobiles were sprinkled with holy water.  The Daily Worker was skeptical at best.  With tongue in cheek it advised its readers "If you have a tin Lizzie who has been staying out night and may have carbon in the cylinders," this was the answer.  It spoofed, "Wicked Studebakers and lewd Lizzies, which have parked themselves in secluded spots on Saturday nights, are doubtless expected to be run through the confessional before enjoying the blessing."

Father Daniel de Nonno blesses a car in the first Blessing of the Automobiles The New York Times, February 8, 1931

Father de Nonno found nothing funny about it.  The New Yorker wrote "Rev. Daniel de Nonno will hold these services on the second Sunday of every month."  The Church of the Holy Family quickly gained the nickname "The Motorists' Church and Father de Nonno soon became the national director of the Confraternity of St. Christopher.

Later that year, in October, three murals by Italian artist Ignazio La Russa were unveiled.  They represented the Glorification of the Holy Family, the Ascension of Christ, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.  The latter was a copy of Titian's masterpiece in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Venice.  They were unveiled by the rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Mgr. Michael J. Lavelle.

Titian's masterpiece was reproduced in the Church of the Holy Family

On December 29, 1936 The New York Times reported that Father de Nonno had been transferred to the office of administration of St. Anthony's Church in the Bronx.  The Church of the Holy Family now shared a rector--Father George Zertgraf--with St. Bonifice's Church.  

Three and a half years later, on June 14, 1940, de Nonno died.  In reporting on his death, The New York Times reminisced about his ministry to travelers.  "Every Sunday, beginning in the early Nineteen Thirties, Father De Nonno, carrying a reliquary containing a bone of St. Christopher, would bless a long line of cars parked on East Forty-seventh Street.  He also blessed cars by special appointment, and made a point of this work in the belief that accidents and the death toll due to motoring would be cut down."

In 1950 the United Nations opened on its massive site on 1st Avenue.  Within a decade its growth demanded expansion and nearby blocks were acquired for new structures.   The block upon which the Church of the Holy Family was demolished to make way for Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in the early  1960's.  A new structure for the church was completed in 1965, next door to the old site, and designed by George J. Sole.  

photo via Mid-Century Mundane

The immediate site of the 1925 church is occupied today by partly by The Family School and by the Japan Society.