The Lost Lemuel Bolton Bangs House - 32 East 51st Street

 

The entrance doors had not yet been installed when this photo was taken.  The Brickbuilder, September 1903 (copyright expired)

Architect Charles Brendon had worked for several years in the office of developer Charles Buek.  When Buek retired in 1901, Brendon and Alexander Milne, Buek's nephew, acquired the business, renaming it Charles Brendon & Co.  On February 2, 1901 the Record & Guide noted, "Their first effort...will be the erection of a handsome modern five-story American basement dwelling, with all the latest approved appliances of the up-to-date house, on the lot recently purchased by them on East 51st st., between Madison and Park ave."

The plot sat within an exclusive residential neighborhood, directly behind St. Patrick's Cathedral and nearly abutting the magnificent mansions erected by Henry Villard in 1884.  Brendon's plans projected the construction costs of the 25-foot-wide residence at $33,000, or about $1 million in 2023 money.

Construction progressed rapidly and only eight months later Charles Brendon & Co. was advertising the home for sale.  The Record & Guide noted, "The front is of granite, Indiana limestone, handsomely carved, and a light shade of red brick."  Brendon's Beaux Arts design featured "elegant wrought-iron entrance doors and railings," as described by the Record & Guide, flanked by two robust brackets.  The second and third floors were dominated by a rusticated limestone frame for the grouped windows, those of the third floor sitting within a beveled arch.  The slate shingled mansard sat behind a stone balustrade capped with two large urns and punctured by a large, pedimented dormer.  

The house was purchased by H. Durant Cheever and his wife, the former Zora Horlocker.  Cheever was the head of the Okonite Company, founded by his father, John Haven Cheever.  The couple's country home was in Greenwich, Connecticut.  It is unclear whether the Cheevers ever moved into the house.  They were leasing it to the Julius Pauly family in 1903.  Daughter Martha Paul was married to Myers Jacobs on June 2 that year.

Guests would have seen little of the ground floor other than the reception room, before being escorted to the first floor, or piano nobile.  The Brickbuilder, September 1903 (copyright expired)

The Cheevers sold 32 East 51st Street to Dr. Lemuel Bolton Bangs and his wife, the former Isabel Hoyt in March 1905.  Bangs and his first wife, Frances Augustus Edwards, had three children, Merwin Bolton, Mary Edwards, and Helen Augusta.  Frances had died in 1885, and Bangs married Isabel on December 5, 1894.   They would have one son, Nesbitt Hoyt, who was born in 1896.  Mary, who was 23-years-0ld, and Helen, who was  21, were still unmarried and moved into the 51st Street house with their father, step-mother and half-brother.  The family's summer home, Manatuck Farm, was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Born in 1842, Bangs graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1872, and then studied in Berlin and Vienna.  By now he was a noted expert in genito-urinary surgery.  In 1895 edited the American Text Book on Genito-urinary Diseases, and in 1898 published the Atlas of Syphilis and the Venereal Diseases.

When his father purchased the East 51st Street house, Merwin Bolton Bangs was living far away and had already led an exciting life.  He had attended the exclusive St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire before entering Yale University.  On May 3, 1898, during his junior year, he enlisted in the army to serve in the Spanish-American War.  After his military service, he returned to Yale.  He was a stockbroker for only a few months before traveling to Kansas where he became a successful rancher.  Sadly, he died there on Christmas Day 1909 at the age of 32 of a diabetic coma.

Manatuck Farm was the scene of Helen's wedding in the summer of 1910.  On June 28 the New-York Tribune reported, "A fashionable country home wedding took place this afternoon, when Miss Helen Augusta Bangs, youngest daughter of Dr. and Mrs. L. Bolton Bangs, of No. 32 East 51st street, New York City, and John Nevin Sayre, of South Bethlehem, Penn., were married."  Mary was her sister's maid of honor.

Dr. Bangs died at the age of 72 on October 4, 1914.  In reporting his death, The New York Times called him "for many years a prominent surgeon of this city."

The Brickbuilder, September 1903 (copyright expired)

Isabel and Mary lived on quietly in the townhouse, spending their summers not only in Stockbridge, but other fashionable resorts.  On July 5, 1918, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. L. Bolton Bangs, who has returned from Newport, is entertaining John Kendrick Bangs of New York at Manatuck Farm, Stockbridge," and three months later, on October 18, The Sun noted, "Mrs. L. Bolton Bangs and Miss Mary Bangs have returned from Lenox to 32 East Fifty-first street."

Isabel sold 32 East 51st Street in July 1921 to the colorful Margaret Hawkesworth for $110,000 (about $1.67 million today).  Margaret was what was known as a "society dancer."  She had signed a $8,750 entertainment contract with the Hotel Plaza in 1914, equal to more than a quarter of a million in 2023 dollars.

Margaret Hawkesworth, The Theatre, May 1916 (copyright expired)

In its May 1916 issue, The Theatre remarked, "A feature of Miss Hawkesworth's first professional engagement has been the large number of parties chaperoned by fashionable matrons, who have studied from loges and boxes the newest steps which will probably be popularized at Newport and the fashionable resorts this Summer."

Margaret had just returned from Europe when she purchased 32 East 51st Street.  On April 21, 1923, The New York Times had reported on the six ocean liners that would depart New York that day, saying, "Many notables in the world of finance, diplomacy, the stage and society are represented among the outgoers."  Among those on the Majestic was Margaret Hawkesworth.

Amazingly, 32 E. 51st Street was still a private home when this photo was taken in 1941.  The Villard Houses are to the right, and across Madison Avenue is the Archbishop's residence.  via NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

With World War II raging in 1942, 32 East 51st Street became Freedom House, described by The Sun as "a center of relief activities."  An inaugural dinner was held at the Hotel Commodore on March 19, 1942 with Archibald MacLeish and Wendell L. Willkie being the principal speakers.  A feature of Freedom House was the "big war mural," as described by The East Hampton Star, executed by Dutch artist Joep Nicolas.

Not every event in Freedom House was war-related.  On May 16, 1942 The New York Age reported that the following day the New York branch of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club, Inc. would hold its 10th annual Women's Day Program and Art Exhibition there.

Astoundingly, as the mansions of Midtown gave way to businesses, 32 East 51st Street was still described as a "large private residence" when it was sold by the Continental Bank & Trust Company in October 1944.  Its use as Freedom House had not altered the interiors.  The New York Times commented, "it was learned that the property will be occupied under lease by the Downtown Gallery."

The New York Times, October 26, 1944

The Downtown Gallery would be a fixture among the Midtown galleries for decades.  On October 5, 1963, The New York Times's Stuart Preston announced, "Artists of fame and promise meet in the 38th-anniversary exhibition at the Downtown Gallery, 32 East 51st Street."

Then, on August 12, 1971, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced it would move its administrative offices from the Villard Houses to a proposed building to be constructed at First Avenue and 55th Street.  The New York Times reported, "Church officials said that the archdiocese planned to maintain ownership of the 19th-century architectural gems and was nearing the end of negotiations to lease the structures on a long-term basis to a 'conservative commercial firm that will use and maintain them in a style befitting a landmark.'"

That was and was not true.

Hotelier Harry Helmsley commissioned architects Emery Roth & Sons and Hardy Holzman Pfieffer to design a modern high-rise hotel behind and incorporating the Villard Houses.  To accomplish that, the pristinely intact Bangs mansion had to go.  It was demolished in 1977 to make way for the Helmsley Palace, known today as Lotte New York Palace.

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog

The Lost George B. Post Jr. House - 3 East 51st Street

The gated service lane, between the house and the Union Club, allowed for a full wall of windows.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

When the the city leased the block of land between Fifth and Madison Avenues and 51st and 52nd Streets to the Catholic Church in 1845 (at $1 per year rent), the area was undeveloped and bucolic.  The rolling meadows provided a perfect spot for the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum.  

But as the century drew to a close that was no longer the case.  The orphanage now sat squarely among the mansions of the city's wealthiest citizens, its Fifth Avenue lawn facing the Vanderbilt family's "triple palace."  A replacement site was procured in Fordham Heights and in 1900 the old buildings were razed.  Suddenly there were building plots available within the most exclusive residential neighborhood in Manhattan and developers scrambled.

Among them were brothers John T. and James A. Farley.  Their firm, Terence Farley's Sons had been busy erecting upscale speculative homes for about two decades when they acquired the plot at No. 3 East 51st Street.  They commissioned architect Charles Chary Thain to design a 32-foot wide mansion on the site, one which would fit into the high-end neighborhood of Astors, Rockefellers and Goulds.

The plot sat directly behind the rising Union Club, which faced Fifth Avenue--a testament in itself to the fashionable tenor of the block.  For it Thain designed a five-story, limestone-clad Beaux Arts mansion that left no question as to the financial and social status of the future owners.  

The entrance within the rusticated base sat above a short, wide stoop.  The French-style windows of the second floor opened onto a stone balustraded balcony.  Carved garlands which emanated from the keystones trailed halfway down the architrave frames.  The fourth floor sat above a substantial stone cornice, the window pediments extending into the copper-clad mansard of the fifth floor, which was punctured by three oeil-de-boeuf windows.

Construction on the house suffered a setback in the fall of 1903.  With the major work completed, workmen were finishing up the interior details.  On November 12 the New-York Tribune reported "Two Italians were working in the house polishing the hardwood floors, a composition of oil being used.  It was rubbed on the floors with cotton waste.  A large bag of this waste was in a pantry on the second floor."

While the men took their lunch break in a front-facing room, the oily rags ignited, apparently from spontaneous combustion.   But it was not the workmen who noticed the smoke and flames, but the chief engineer of the newly-opened Union Club.   He quickly ordered the smartly-uniformed attendants to drag the club's fire hose to the house.  Millionaire club members joined in, "working side by side," according to the article.  By the time fire fighters arrived the flames were mostly subdued.

The fire caused nearly $15,000 in damages by today's standards and repairs were now necessary on what had been a nearly finished mansion.

As the summer of 1904 approached the house was completed.  And then the Farleys faced another glitch.  On July 16, 1904 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported "John T. and James A. Farley have sold the 5-sty American basement dwelling, 3 East 51st st., a new fireproof structure, adjoining the Union Club."  But to whom?

Broker George A. Mills took out a mortgage on July 29.  But another mortgage on the same day, provided by John T. Farley himself, was made out to Katherine C. Weidenfeld.  The confusion resulted in architectural historians to this day referring to No. 3 East 51st Street as the George A. Mills house.  It was not.

If there was a dispute, Katherine won.  It was not the end of confusion, however.  While the title and the mortgage documents listed her as Katherine C. Weidenfeld, she was in actuality Katherine C. Edey, the widow of Albert Rivington Edey.  And that was a strange story in itself.

A wealthy stock broker, Edey had been, according to The New York Times "considered peculiar."  He and Katherine had two daughters, Anna and Louise, and a son, Albert, Jr.  But "he preferred to live alone with his books and his bicycle in a Brooklyn boarding house, while his family lived in the fashionable Knickerbocker apartments," explained the newspaper in November 1900.  The writer was quick to say "Mr. Edey was not estranged from his family, who have independent means, but called on them frequently."

Albert Edey was renting a room from John Seymour in Brooklyn in November 1900.  On a Sunday afternoon when he had not come down, one of the Seymour family members checked on him.  He was lying on a couch in his room, "completed dressed, except that he had removed his shoes and put on a bathrobe instead of his coat.  His vest was buttoned up tightly about him."  He was dead.

The local doctor who was called pronounced the cause of death apoplexy.  It appeared to him that Edey had suffered a massive stroke while reading his newspaper.  He still wore his eyeglasses, there was no gun, and the newspaper had fallen across his chest.  Press coverage reported that the unfortunate death was caused by heart failure.

In fact Edey had shot himself in the heart, a fact that those in the boarding house had not only neglected to mention, but took pains to hide.  The following day the undertaker discovered the gaping wound and notified police.  When they searched the dead man's room, they uncovered the hidden gun.  The New-York Tribune reported on November 21, "The detectives say that there were many indications that an attempt had been made by the friends to hide the fact that it was a case of suicide."  

A relative, Frederick Edey, told a New York Times reporter that he was "not surprised to find that it was a case of suicide, as the dead man had always been very eccentric."  The possibility that this was, instead, a covered-up murder apparently did not occur to anyone and the case was closed.  

Katherine Edey's name did not appear in the society columns for hosting large dinner parties and receptions.  When Anna Rivington Edey was married to John Knickerbocker Porter Stone in the mansion on January 15, 1908, society was caught off guard.  The New York Times noted "No formal announcement had been made of the engagement, and the announcement of the wedding will come as a surprise to all but the intimate friends of the couple."

When Alfred was married to Marion Howard Armstrong in the fashionable Grace Church in April the following year, The Sun noted "The bridegroom is a son of Mrs. Albert Rivington Edey of 210 West Fifty-seventh street."  Katherine had earlier moved out of No. 3 and later that month, on April 25, The New York Times reported "Katherine C. Weidenfeld" had sold the mansion.

Katherine may have moved further uptown because of the changes in the neighborhood.  More and more businesses were elbowing their way among the palaces of Fifth Avenue.

No. 3 became home to the George Browne Post, Jr. family.  The wealthy banker and broker, partner in the firm of Post and Flagg, was the son of esteemed architect George B. Post.  Born in 1864, he was descended from an old Dutch family in America.  He had married Julia Cotton Smith on November 22, 1888 and the couple had two children, George Browne Post III, and Harriett.  

The family's country home, Kenilwood, was in Bernardsville, New Jersey.  It was there that Post bred pedigree dogs; the Encyclopedia of American Biography noting "His pack of Somerset beagles, his favorite breed, was famous throughout the country, and over a long period he was often a judge at beagle shows."

George B. Post, the son of the esteemed architect.  Encyclopedia of American Biography, 1938.

Upon the death of George B. Post, Sr. in 1913, the younger George properly lost the "III" after his name and gained the distinction "Jr."  On February 17, 1916 his engagement to Irene Langhorne Gibson was announced by her parents, Irene and Charles Dana Gibson.  

The New York Times noted "Their marriage will united the families of a great artist and a great architect.  Mr. Post's grandfather, the late George B. Post...was one of the most prominent architects of America.  Among the famous buildings which he designed are the New York Cotton Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, and the residences of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt and the late Collis P. Huntington, which beautify the northwest and southeast corners of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street."  The bride's father, said the article "is the leading black-and-white illustrator of his generation, and has created wonderful types, one of the best known being the Gibson Girl."


Unlike Katherine Edey, the Posts regularly appeared in society columns.  On January 24, 1920, for instance, The Sun reported "Mrs. George B. Post gave a small dance last night in her home, 3 East Fifty-first street."  And on February 4, 1921 The New York Herald commented, "Mr. and Mrs. George B. Post gave a dinner last night at 3 East Fifty-first street, after which Miss Ruth Draper gave several of her monologues."

Ruth Draper was an actress, dramatist and diseuse--a performer of monologues.  She specialized in characters and drew praise from stage legends like George Bernard Shaw, Thornton Wilder and Uta Hagen.  So her appearance in the Post home was a significant event.

In 1926 George B. Post purchased the five-story mansion at No. 45 East 78th Street.  In reporting on the transaction The New York Times said "Mr. Post leased his former residence at 3 East Fifty-first Street to the French art firm of Jacques Seligmann & Co. for twenty-one years."

After renovations the high-end gallery opened on November 30, 1926 with a reception for "400 New York artists, art patrons and other guests," according to The New York Times.  Professor Charles R. Richards, former director of the American Association of Museums addressed the group, and architect Harvey Wiley Corbett read a congratulatory message from French Minister of the Interior Albert Serraut.

The Jacques Seligman Art Galleries would cater to the top echelon of society and the most astute of art connoisseurs.  Among the first exhibitions was a benefit showing of the world-famous 15th century Quo Vadis tapestry for the New York Foundling Hospital.  

In February 1927, two months after Jacques Seligman Art Galleries opened, it was joined in the former mansion by C. M. de Hauke.  His first exhibition included works by Renoir, Manet, Gaugin, and Van Gogh.    Incomparable masterpieces would hang in both galleries for decades.  On December 25, 1927, for instance, The Times reported that the 1771 portrait of Mr. Barwell and His Son by Sr. Joshua Reynolds had been procured by Jacques Seligman & Co.  The painting, seven feet tall and five feet across, was considered by the gallery as "one of the finest Reynoldses in existence."  It was priced at $200,000, or about $2.89 million in today's dollars.

The Jacques Seligman Art Gallery sold Richard Barwell and His Son to millionaire William Goadby Lowe.

Rather surprisingly, the 51st Street block had changed little, outwardly, by the 1940's.  Despite the stores and hotels that had sprouted along Fifth Avenue, the row of old mansions and even the Union Club survived.  But change was about to come.

A 1940 tax photograph shows No. 3 within a block of outwardly little-altered mansions.  via the NY Dept of Records and Information Services

On December 12, 1944 the New York Sun reported that Best's Store "will erect a new building at 5th Avenue and 51st."  The article said that the department store would move from Fifth Avenue and 35th Street "as soon as a modern, twelve-story air-conditioned building can be constructed."  The plot involved included the Union Club property and 3 East 51st Street.  

The Best Store building was completed in 1946.  That building was demolished in 1971 for the 51-story glass and steel Olympic Tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, completed in 1975.

photo via www.corcoran.com

many thanks to reader Phyllis Winchester for suggesting this post

The Lost Leila Howard Codman House -- No. 15 East 51st Street

The F. K. Sturgis mansion, to the right of No. 15, was also designed by Ogden Codman, Jr.  To the left is the granite mansion of John Peirce.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/Mrs.%20B.%20G.%20Work's%20Residence,%2015%20East%2051st%20St.%20N.Y.C.-

 

When Dr. William Seward Webb married Florence Adele Vanderbilt, the daughter of William H. Vanderbilt, in a lavish ceremony in St. Bartholomew’s Church on November 21^st, 1877, things would change for the doctor.  The groom was persuaded to give up his medical practice and to take up finance.  He established the Wall Street firm of W. S. Webb & Co. in 1883.  That same year William Vanderbilt asked him to take control of the Wagner Palace Car Company, a manufacturer of railroad cars of which Vanderbilt owned the controlling interest. 

The following year Webb’s brother, Henry Walter Webb, married Leila Howard Griswold.  He quickly found that being a brother-in-law of the Vanderbilt family could be advantageous.   In 1886 his brother offered him the position of Vice President of the Wagner Palace Car Company.  By the time of H. Walter Webb’s untimely death in 1900, he was vice president of the New York Central Railroad under Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Leila Webb was 44 years old when died her husband died.  She was suddenly the single mother of two young sons: 10-year old John Griswold Webb (who would go on to become a state senator), and 15-year old Henry Walter Webb, Jr.   The burden was lessened by her personal wealth (she was the daughter of millionaire John Augustus Griswold who, among his varied career had personally paid for the construction of the USS Monitor during the Civil War) and the $3 million she inherited from her husband.

While Leila Howard Webb mourned, the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. which encompassed the entire block between 50^th and 51^st Streets, from Fifth Avenue to Madison, was being demolished.  The immense plot of land sat squarely amid Manhattan’s most exclusive residential neighborhood, and across the avenue from “Vanderbilt Row”—so called because of the string of magnificent mansions built by Leila’s in-laws.

The Vanderbilts—spearheaded by George--scurried to prevent commercial interests from buying any of the Asylum properties and constructing hotels or similar structures that would threaten their neighborhood.   Soon the block was filling with handsome residences.

On the Fifth Avenue frontage Morton Plant purchased the corner plot at 52^nd Street from George Vanderbilt where he erected his massive mansion; and on the southern corner the exclusive Union Club was built.  Between them George Vanderbilt erected two matching marble rowhouses.   On 51^st street, stretching to Madison Avenue, construction of lavish homes would continue for the next few years.  Among these was the new mansion of Leila Howard Webb.

On July 8, 1903, The Sun reported that Leila’s architect had filed plans for a $42,000, six-story residence to be built at No. 15 East 51^st Street.  She had chosen Ogden Codman, Jr. for the job.

Although Codman was born in Boston to a prestigious family, he grew up in Paris. Upon his return to the States, he decorated the mansions of New York’s old guard, refusing commissions from the nouveau riche, and wrote the widely-read Decoration of Houses in partnership with Edith Wharton.  Codman’s Parisian background left deep impressions on him and when he began designing houses as well as decorating them, his love for all things French was obvious.

photograph by Arthur Vitols, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

For Leila he produced a magnificent brick and stone structure that would have been at home on the Champs Elysee.  Codman used the American basement plan, highly popular at the time, which he had vigorously championed.  It did away with the high stoops of a generation earlier.  Instead the entrance within the limestone base was just three steps above the sidewalk.  Above were three stories of brick where tall, multi-paned French windows were accented by painted shutters.  A steep two-story mansard capped the residence and provided additional French flair.

The charm of the exterior belied the elegance inside.  The heavy bronze entrance doors opened into a vaulted foyer where another set of ornate bronze-grilled doors added protection.  Leila’s home had the modern convenience of an elevator and the expected traditional features like a bronze-railed staircase, marble floors, richly paneled rooms and exquisite plasterwork.   In addition to Leila’s and the boys’ bedrooms and dressing rooms, were guest rooms, dining room, ballroom, library, morning room, reception room, and the other areas necessary in the home of a wealthy socialite.

The imposing foyer (above) opened into the marble-floored entrance hall.  Note the address worked into the foyer floor.  photographer unknown from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

Leila apparently worked very closely with her architect, for on October 8, 1904 she and Codman were married.

While Leila went about her entertaining and charity work; Codman was busy designing mansions—two of them on the 51^st Street block.  In 1905 he designed the $300,000 mansion of E. Rollins Morse; and the following year he started work on No. 17 East 51^st Street for F. K. Sturgis.

Incidental spaces included the Reception Room (above) and the Morning Room.  photographer unknown from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

Leila was active in the Stony Wold Sanitarium for women and girls afflicted with tuberculosis.  Her interest may have been prompted by her former husband's fight with the disease when he suffered his fatal heart attack.  The mansion was the scene of sanitarium meetings such as the one in January 1907 when officers were elected.

Even the elevator was tastefully decorated in a French motif      photographer unknown from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

That same year Codman and Leila purchased a building plot at No. 7 East 96^th Street where mansion building was going on at a feverish rate.  The trend had been sparked by Andrew Carnegie’s sumptuous 1903 residence at Fifth Avenue and 91^st Street, built 20 blocks north of other millionaires’ homes at the time.

The purchase of the plot was possibly in reaction to the resolute advance of commerce into their Midtown neighborhood.  But if they considered moving northward, it would not happen—at least not in Leila’s lifetime.

The Codmans suffered excruciating public humiliation in 1909 when they returned from Europe in November on the Lusitania.  They told Customs officials they had nothing to declare; however when the inspector opened their trunks, he found about $1,000 work of new gowns “evidently of foreign make.”

Deputy Surveyor Alexander McKeon sent the trunks to the Appraiser’s Stores.   Leila and Ogden were interrogated.  They insisted that the gowns had, indeed, been purchased abroad, but that they had been shipped to the States by the maker in 1908.

The unwavering McKeon was not intimidated by the high social station of his suspects.  He spent nearly a week investigating the case and searched for 1908 customs records that would substantiate their story.  There were no documents showing any goods arriving at Customs in 1908 for the Codmans.

Instead he found the records of Leila and Ogden returning to New York that year and “swearing off” the expensive gowns and women’s clothing “as having been taken out of the country by them and therefore exempt from duty.”

On November 20, 1909 The New York Times very publically reported “The matter was referred to Harrison Osborne, Solicitor to the Collector, and he sent a request for the Codmans to come to the Custom House.  Mr. and Mrs. Codman were asked to explain why their goods should not be declared forfeited to the Government.”

Rather shockingly, two months later the 54-year old Leila Howard Codman died in the 51^st Street mansion on Friday January 21, 1910.   Each of Leila’s sons received $167,254.50 while Ogden inherited the rest of her estate.   The 51^st Street mansion, at the time, was valued at $160,000 (about $4 million in 2015).

Odgen Codman, Jr. remained in the house; while he almost immediately began laying plans for a new home on the 96th Street plot.   That house, fully completed in 1913, bore remarkable similarities to the 51^st Street home—slightly scaled down.  As his new home neared completion in April 1912, Codman sold No.  15 East 51^st Street to Bertram G. Work.

The entertainment rooms, like the Dining Room (above) and the ballroom were designed to impress.    photographer unknown from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

In the recent decades titans of industry like John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler had relocated from Ohio to New York City.  Now Bertram G. Work and his family joined the trend.  Work was the president of the Akron-based B. F. Goodrich Rubber Company.  With the explosion of the automobile industry, rubber tires were in immense demand.   And the Work fortune increased proportionately.

Marion Sawyer Work updated the décor of No. 15 East 51^st Street and entered the life of a Manhattan socialite.   The Works, including their son Bertram, Jr., spent much time traveling.  They would routinely summer at White Sulphur Springs before purchasing their lavish summer estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island.

Marion Work's bedroom as she redecorated it.    photographer unknown from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

It was there, on the evening of August 27, 1923, that Marion died at the age of 49.  Despite the much-changed Manhattan neighborhood, Bertram remained in the 51^st Street house; although he spent much time in Oyster Bay, tending to his prize-winning gardens.  On August 30, 1927 he died of a heart attack while traveling in Switzerland.

Bertram Jr. sold the 51^st Street mansion in April 1928 for $325,000; choosing to move into a modern duplex apartment at No. 941 Park Avenue.  Purchased by a “Philadelphia investor,” it was leased to Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach, who lived in the upper stories and slightly renovated the lower floors as the Rosenbach Galleries. 

Two views of the library, during the Works' residency above, and Rosenberg's below, reflect Dr. Rosenberg's sensitive treatment of the interiors.   Photographer of top photograph unknown.  Bottom photograph by Wurts Bros. Both from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW4B54KR&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623

Recognized world-wide, Rosenbach’s gallery offered extremely rare documents, artwork and antique furniture.  In 1930 he offered 69 letters written by George Washington that documented events of the Revolution, including the sentencing of Major John Andre, and 36 letters to Cornwallis.  Within the next three years clients could purchase letters from Thomas Jefferson and other signors of the Declaration of Independence; speeches of Abraham Lincoln; original works by Shakespeare; and works by Dutch masters.  In 1940 Dr. Rosenbach displayed manuscripts by Chaucer.

But after nearly two decades in the house, Rosenbach was forced to leave.  In 1947 the Roman Catholic Church bought up the houses from No. 15 to Madison Avenue and around the corner.  The Diocese quickly presented Rosenbach with an eviction notice. 

In October an auction was held of the stock that included “furniture antiques, paintings, color prints, silver, and textiles.”  John Fleming, the gallery’s manager, told reporters that Dr. Rosenberg had tried to buy the house back, but “St. Patrick’s officials” refused to sell.  They asserted they had “plans” for the structure.

Indeed they did.  The following year construction began on the Look Building, designed by Emery Roth & Sons.  The loss of the magnificent turn-of-the-century mansions designed by Codman is tempered by their replacement with an equally masterful mid-20^th century structure.

The Look Building as it appeared on October 26, 1951.  photograph by Wurts Bros, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW47RSNO&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=623