The Meyer and Emilie Hoffman House - 122 East 57th Street

 

photograph by Ted Leather

In March 1876, real estate operator Andres Dold purchased a 204-foot long parcel on East 57th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues from Frederick Zittel.  The following year he completed a row of two- and three-bay wide houses on the site. 

Among the narrower examples was 122 East 57th Street.  Just 16-feet-wide, it rose four stories above a high English basement.  Faced in brownstone, its neo-Grec design included stone architraves with molded cornices and bracketed sills.

The houses along the block became home to well-heeled residents.  The Betts family first occupied 122 East 57th Street and, like their neighbors, their movements were closely followed by the society pages.  On September 6, 1883, for instance,  The Evening Telegram reported, "Mrs. H. W. Betts and family, of 122 East Fifty-seventh street, have left the Mansion Home, Monticello, N. Y., and are now at Saratoga."

Before long, Meyer and Emilie Hoffman purchased the house.  Living with them were their adult children, Clara, Maurice J. (known as Morris), and Julia May and her family.  Julia and her husband, Charles Brownold, had two children, Claudia and Irma.

Clara's wedding to Nathaniel Henry Wolfstein was held in the ballroom of Mazzetti's at 59th Street and Sixth Avenue on January 16, 1890.  The New York Times described the venue as being "prettily decorated with palms and clematis, and the bridal party stood under a canopy of white roses and lilacs."  Maurice Hoffman was Wolfstein's best man and Charles Brownold was one of the ushers.  The socially visible event drew guests from as far as Cincinnati and Philadelphia.

Maurice J. Hoffman died unmarried on January 21, 1892 at the age of 31.  His funeral was held in the parlor of 122 East 57th Street three days later.

It would not be the family's last funeral to be held here.  On November 28, 1904, Meyer Hoffman died at the age of 74 and his funeral was held on the 30th; and Charles Brownold died on June 24, 1913.  (While The New York Times noted that his funeral would be held in the house, it said it would be "strictly private.")

By the time of Emilie's death around 1916, the neighborhood around 122 East 57th Street had become decidedly commercial.  On May 1, 1917, The New York Times reported: 

The rapid transformation of East Fifty-seventh Street from residential to business purposes is further illustrated by a lease of the four-story dwelling, 122 East Fifty-seventh Street...for the estate of Emilie Hoffman to Harry Turner...The building will be altered by the installation of stores on the lower floors and apartments above.

Architect Herbert J. Krapp made $6,000 in renovations (about $151,000 in 2026 terms).  While the stoop remained, the basement and parlor levels were converted to shops.  They were quickly leased.  On August 5, 1917, The New York Times reported that Georges Chevrier, "cleaning and dyeing" had rented the ground floor store and milliner Frances B. Lankland had signed a lease on the "parlor floor."

Each of the upper three floors held two apartments.  An advertisement in July 1918 described one of them as having "Two very large rooms, kitchenette and bath."

In 1919, the Paris-based boutique Jeannetton, Inc. occupied one of the store spaces.  Its manager was looking for help in October 1920, advertising, "Girl for errands and shopping, white; experience required; $20 weekly."  (How much experience a young woman would need to run errands is unclear.)  The weekly pay would translate to about $320 today.

Victory magazine, September, 1919 (copyright expired)

Charles Finkelstein assembled a syndicate, the 122 East Fifty-seventh Street, Inc., in 1935 to purchase the building.  In reporting on the transaction on April 11, The New York Times noted, "The new owner will alter the building."

Before the end of the year, the stoop had been removed and a new two-story storefront installed.  The apartments, still two per floor, got a renovation at the time.

The 1935 renovations did not affect the 1877 neo-Grec window details.  via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

Shortly after the renovations were completed, 122 East 57th Street was the scene of a dramatic rescue.  On November 13, 1935, The New York Times reported that an "exploring expedition undertaken by a white Persian cat" had thrown the block into upheaval.  The feline was valued by its owner, Louise Kersch of 110 East 57th Street, at the equivalent of $7,000 today.  It had crawled from the window of the Kersch apartment and jumped sill-to-sill until stopping in front of an apartment at 122 East 57th Street.

The New York Times reported that its rescue entailed, "the calling of a police emergency squad."  The residents of the apartment were not at home, so police "rigged a life net of tarpaulin below the window in fear that the cat, some sixty feet above the sidewalk, might fall."  Traffic on the block was stopped and crowds gathered to watch the drama unfold.  Finally, police "forced a door" into the apartment and rescued the cat from the window.

At the time of that drama, the store spaces were occupied by two high-end antiques dealers.  Henry V. Weil occupied the parlor floor and Alfred Rich & Sons was in the shop at street level.  Weil advertised "genuine American antiques" in 1937, and that year The New York Sun remarked, "The firm of Alfred Rich & Sons...has made a specialty of cameo glass."

The constant search for rare glassware and china caused Alfred Rich & Sons to become a victim of a prolific crook in 1945.  Harry Francis Burke, who lived in a furnished room on East 50th Street, was "a collector of rare china," as reported by The New York Sun on June 22.  He had been arrested the previous day and police said his room was packed with valuable stolen glassware and china, including "an 1850 dessert dish from the J. P. Morgan collection."  The article noted, "The police said he also had stored several barrels of the merchandise in warehouses."  

Burke confessed that he had sold several items to Alfred Rich.  The New York Sun said that Rich "was unaware that they were stolen," but he was given a summons "for failing to keep proper books."

At the time of the embarrassing incident, the second floor space had been home to the East India Curry Shop for four years, having opened in May 1941.  Writing in The New York Times on April 3, 1944, Jane Holt reported that in addition to the many varieties of curry offered at the East India Curry Shop, "the establishment sells a concentrated curry sauce, which it blends itself."

Living here around midcentury was pioneer aviator David Hugh McCulloch.  Born on April 23, 1890, he was a pilot for the Curtis Airplane Company in 1910, and trained flyers for the U.S. Navy during World War I.  He served as co-pilot during the U.S. Navy's attempt in 1919 to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air, and continued to train pilots at Floyd Bennett Field until his retirement in 1946.  McCulloch was still living here on September 21, 1955 when he died following what The New York Times described as "a long illness."  

In the meantime, the ground floor continued to house upscale antiques dealers.  In 1949, Martin J. Ullmanns expanded its offerings by "making a specialty of designing mounts and shades" for antique vases and figurines to be converted into table lamps.  

From the mid-1960s until 1983, Philip Colleck of London occupied space here.  On November 25, 1965, The New York Times reported, "A sizable section of newly acquired pine paneling, once in a chateau in the environs of Paris, has been installed in the shop of Philip Colleck of London."  The article said the Louis XV paneling turned the shop "into an atmospheric stage for handsome furniture."

photograph by Ted Leather

In 1994, the lower two floors were combined as a restaurant and the upper floors converted to office space.  It was possibly at this time that the window details were shaved off.  Today the brownstone is painted and only the 1877 cornice survives to remind us of a time when the building was home to a wealthy family.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post

The Lost Fritz and Bertha Achelis House - 9 East 57th Street

 

photograph by Wurts Bros, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On November 11, 1901, Chauncey Kilmer died in his four-story, brownstone-faced mansion at 9 East 57th Street.  He left an estate "valued at $1,000,000," according to the Troy, New York Daily Times.  That figure would translate to about 38 times that amount in 2025.  Less than a month later, on December 5, The New York Times reported that Kilmer's estate had sold the 28-foot-wide residence.  Frederick Fritz Achelis paid $175,000 for the property (about $6.6 million today).

Achelis was known professionally by his middle name.  He and his wife, the former Bertha Franzisca Koenig were born in 1843 and 1855 respectively, and were married on July 4, 1878.  The couple had three children, twins Margaret Julie and Alette Elisabeth, and Fritz (or Frederic) George.  (Another child, Bertha Dorothea, had died at the age of one in 1881.)

Fritz and Bertha commissioned esteemed architect C. P. H. Gilbert to remodel the outdated house, built in 1881.  He stripped off the brownstone facade and replaced it with limestone.  Behind the tall, impressive iron fencing, the stoop rose to a columned portico that upheld a stone-railed balcony at the second floor.  The rusticated basement and parlor levels gave way to planar stone at the upper floors.  A three-sided oriel at the second floor provided one of the two balconies at the third floor.  A handsome balustraded parapet sat atop the cornice.  The renovations cost the Achelises the equivalent of $571,000 today.

Achelis was president of the American Hard Rubber Company, established by Bertha's father, Friedrich Wilhelm Koenig.  He was, as well, a partner with Bertha's brother-in-law, George F. Vietor, in the dry goods and textile firm Frederick Vietor & Achelis.  The couple's 49-acre summer home, Wiesenach, was in Seabright, New Jersey.  

The mansion at Wiesenach was built in 1889 and designed by Henry Hudson Holly.  photograph by Pach Brothers from the collection of Rugers University Libraries.

The renovations to 9 East 57th Street were completed by the end of the 1902 summer season.  On October 6, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Achelis and family, who are still at their country place, Wiesenach, Rumson Road, Seabright, N. J., will this winter occupy the house No. 9 East Fifty-seventh street."

While Bertha Achelis continued to host entertainments and involve herself in philanthropic work, in 1909 she became a force in the nationwide debate about women's right to vote.  On March 17 that year, The Evening Post announced, "The home of Mrs. Fritz Achelis, at No. 9 East Fifty-seventh Street, will be thrown open on Monday afternoons hereafter to the Anti-Suffragists.  Prominent 'Antis' will explain the position of the women who are opposed to ballots for their sex."  The article mentioned that Bertha "is an active member of the executive committee of the State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage."

Seven months after that article, Bertha was appointed chairman of the State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.  On October 2, 1909, the New-York Tribune noted, "Mrs. Achelis is entirely free for the present to give all her time to the work, and she intends to do it, she says."  Explaining that she disliked protest marches and brash publicity, she told the reporter in part, 

I don't approve of public meetings or of public debates.  Contentious discussion advances nothing, and in debates people often speak without very deep thought.  We never want to speak without reflection, and we are going to take great pains not to make any statements that are not absolutely correct.  We are going to be very conservative, strong and thorough, I hope, but not aggressive or sensational.

(Bertha's laid-back philosophy was starkly different to those of pro-Suffragists like Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and may have contributed to the Anti-Suffragists' eventual defeat.)

Fritz George Achelis graduated from Yale in 1907 and joined his father's American Hard Rubber Company.  His engagement to Helen Bruff was announced on January 26, 1913, The Sun mentioning that he, "is a member of several well known clubs, including the Yale, Delta Kappa Epsilon and Rumson Country clubs."

Interestingly, the wedding, which took place on April 16, was held in the East 57th Street mansion.  (House weddings traditionally were held in the home of the bride's family.)  The Sun explained, "Owing to the recent death of the bride's grandmother, Mrs. Richard P. Bruff, the ceremony will be celebrated quietly and there will be no reception."

By the time of the wedding, the Midtown neighborhood was quickly transforming from one of sumptuous private residences to a commercial district.  Millionaires moved uptown along Central Park, and their homes were converted for business or razed.  

On December 22, 1917, the Record & Guide reported, "Harry Collins, Inc. costumes, leased for ten years, the one-time residence of Fritz Achelis, at 9 East 57th street...The building will be remodeled for occupancy by the lessee."  The annual rental, $11,259, would equal about a quarter of a million dollars today.  Architects Cross & Cross sympathetically altered the mansion for the clothing firm, including an additional floor that sat back from the roofline.

Harry Collins, Inc. included a sketch of the remodeled mansion in its opening announcement in The New York Times on March 3, 1918 (copyright expired)

Henry Collins, Inc. opened on March 5, 1918 with a benefit fashion show called "A Fashion Fete of Suits: Gowns, Wraps, Millinery."  Society patrons paid a $2 admission charge.  An announcement in The New York Times noted, "The two-day event will be for the benefit of the blind soldiers.  A host of artists have offered their talents, contributing to a most delightful terpsichorean and musical program."

Henry Collins, Inc. leased the building through 1921, after which Tappe, Inc., another society millinery and gown shop, moved in.  On April 19, 1922, Floyd Macdonald, the firm's shipping clerk, was working in the basement when Mr. Tappe's pet fox terrier, JoJo, began barking.  It prompted Macdonald to investigate and he discovered "shooting flames" in an area of the basement.  The New York Times reported, "The 200 young women who are employed in the establishment became panic-stricken as the clouds of smoke filled every stairway and exit, and it was with difficulty that some of them were rescued."

Specifically, Kitty Robinson was trapped on the third floor.  The article said that she, "hastily knotted together a couple of sheets and slid down the improvised rope into the rear areaway."  Happily for her, a policeman caught her and saved her life, according to Mr. Tappe.  Cecelia Tappe, a partner in the firm, was discovered unconscious on the top floor by a firefighter.  "He picked her up and carried her to the roof, where he dropped from overexertion," said The New York Times.  "Patrolman Thompson...got them to safety."

The article said that "nearly $10,000 worth of hats and dresses" were destroyed, including gowns belonging "to Mrs. George Vanderbilt and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt."  The building suffered damages equivalent of $935,000 today.

The fire resulted in the lower floors being completely remodeled.  A glass-fronted show window and entrances replaced Gilbert's limestone front at street level.

An advertisement offering the building for lease boasted the new storefront.  International Studio, September 1924 (copyright expired)

Bertha Koenig Achelis died in 1921.  Three years later, on December 23, 1924, Fritz Achelis died at the age of 81.  On March 28, 1925, the Record & Guide reported that the Achelis estate had sold the building.  Before the end of the year, The Cumulative Daily Digest of Corporation News reported that a "completed building" had replaced the former Achelis mansion.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The 1930 Rolls Royce Building - 32 East 57th Street

 

In 1928, the exclusive Miss Chapin's School still occupied the two former mansions at 32 and 34 East 57th Street.  But the Midtown district, now filled with commercial buildings and bustling traffic, was no longer one of posh homes and private schools.  The following year the newly formed 34 East 57th Street Corporation demolished the old residences and hired the architectural firm of Buchman & Kahn to design a 19-story and penthouse office and showroom building on the site.

Completed the following year, the firm's Art Deco design featured a three-story stone base with a massive show window at the ground floor and sleek metal main entrance.  Honeycomb-like bands above the doors mimicked those executed in stone at the second and third floors.

Rusticated piers in brown-gray brick contrasted with the smooth-faced spandrels.  Above the 12th floor, the structure detonated in a series of setbacks and terraces.  

The Great Depression had struck almost simultaneously with the building's groundbreaking.  Ironically, before construction began the owners had negotiated the lease of the main showroom space with one of the world's foremost symbols of spending and luxury--the Rolls-Royce Company.  Now, in the ground floor of the new Rolls-Royce Building (while other New Yorkers waited in bread lines), wealthy customers browsed among the British-based firm's high-end vehicles--touted as "the best automobile in the world."

Vehicles like the 1930 Phantom II were displayed in the ground floor showroom.  The Motor, September 24, 1929.

Rolls-Royce remained in the space until 1936, when, on August 15, The New York Times reported, "As part of its 1937 sales program the Cadillac Motor Car Company yesterday leased large space for showrooms in the former Rolls-Royce building at 32 East Fifty-seventh Street."  The "store, basement, mezzanine and second floor," would be used for the luxury car maker's sales and display purposes.

photograph by Wurts Bros, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the meantime, the upper floor offices were home to a variety of tenants, including the architectural office of Edward Shepherd Hewitt, and the headquarters of Young America magazine.

With the Depression over, the first of a tradition of art galleries within the building began.  On January 18, 1941, The New York Times reported, "In the Rolls-Royce Building, 32-4 East Fifty-seventh Street, H. V. Allison leased space for his own art salesrooms."  The building would soon be known as a center of art.  

In January 1945, the Kraushaar Galleries moved in.  Founded by Charles Kraushaar in 1885 as an art supply store, it now specialized in the modern art.  On January 6, The Sun reported the gallery had been "installed in spacious rooms that are beautifully adapted to the showing of pictures," adding:

Five American painters long associated with these galleries have been chosen to try out the new rooms—and do it impressively.  These artists are George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, William Glackens, John Sloan and Ernest Lawson, and students of American life as well as of American art will be interested in seeing again the "Garden Party" by the George Luks who never repeated himself; the prismatic coloring of Prendergast and the transcriptions from New York history by Sloan, Glackens, and Lawson.

Already occupying space in the building at the time were the Metropolitan-Reynolds Galleries, the Willard Gallery, and the Bignou Gallery.  On the same day The Sun reported on the Kraushaar Gallery's opening, it announced a showing of seven paintings by Richard Pousette-Dart in the Willard Gallery.

By 1947, the Bucholz Gallery adjoined the Willard Gallery, and the Schaefer Gallery had leased space by 1951.  

One space not dedicated to paintings or sculpture was the H. H. Harmer Gallery, here by 1946.  It was perhaps the country's preeminent auction gallery of rare stamps and would remain in the building for years.  On September 12, 1954, for example, the Washington D.C. Sunday Star announced, "Alfred F. Lichtenstein's prize-winning collection of stamps of Canada is to be sold at auction by H. R. Harmer, Inc., 32 East 57th street, New York City, November 1 to 3 inclusive."

In the meantime, the tradition of luxury automobiles had continued on the lowest floors.  In 1956, Jaguar of New York, Inc. occupied the showrooms and would remain at least through 1966.

Allan Frumkin moved his art gallery into the Rolls-Royce Building in the fall of 1959.  When the Frumkin Gallery opened its exhibition of Theodore Halkin painted reliefs in January 1964, The New York Times remarked, "This is cunning, slightly fiendish work."

One of the building's most visible and long-lasting galleries was the Pace, which leased space in 1968.  The gallery had been founded eight years earlier in Boston.  Some of the world's most recognized artists were represented here.  Such was the case when an exhibition of Louise Nevelson's painted aluminum sculptures was held in May 1971. 

In an article on June 18, 2018, The New York Times journalist Caroline Bankoff described the Pace Gallery as "a humble Boston shop that has turned into a global empire."  She noted that since establishing the gallery at 32 East 57th Street, Pace had galleries "in Chelsea, London, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Palo Alto and Geneva."

At the time of Bankoff's article, the Wells Gallery also occupied space in the building.

After half a century in 32 East 57th Street, Pace Gallery, now known as Pace/MacGill, left in 2019.  On October 21, 2021, The New York Times reported that the Howard Greenberg Gallery had taken "an entire floor vacated by the Pace Gallery in 32 East 57th Street."  Greenberg opened with a showing of photographs by the first Black photographer hired by Life magazine as a staff photographer.  The exhibition was titled "Gordon Parks: A Choice of Weapons."

Once the destination for Manhattan's wealthiest car shoppers, the Rolls-Royce Building--a sort of sculpture in itself--has been a center of upscale art for more than eight decades.

photographs by the author

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Mann & MacNeille's 1925 424 East 57th Street

 

The transformation of Sutton Place in 1920-21 from a dingy block to one occupied by some of New York's wealthiest citizens quickly affected the surrounding blocks.  Coal yards and a brewery were eliminated to make room for upscale apartment houses.  In 1925 Horace Borchsenius Mann got in on the trend.

Mann was a partner with Perry R. MacNeille in the architectural firm of Mann & MacNeille.  They were best known for large urban planning projects such as Bristol, Pennsylvania, described by the American Architect in 1918 as "America's greatest single industrial housing development."  This project would be considerably smaller.

In 1925 Horace B. Mann purchased and demolished the three old buildings at 422 through 426 East 57th Street, half a block west of Sutton Place.  Mann & MacNeille then designed a six-story apartment building on the site.  Completed within the year, it was faced in rough-faced brown brick.  Its somber design was inspired by medieval Italian architecture and featured an arched corbel table below the understated cornice and tiled roof.  The firm handled the regulated fire escapes--often visual obstructions--by placing them in front of vast sets of French doors and windows, giving them a balcony effect.  The second through fifth floor windows on either side sat within slight recesses that rose to dramatic full-relief terra cotta rosettes nestled within rounded corbels.

Among the initial residents were Philip S. Platt, his wife and daughter.  He had long been involved in public health and social welfare.  In 1914 as Superintendent of the Bureau of Public Health and Hygiene, he had lobbied for sanitary public drinking fountains, saying in part, "The miles which one may walk in New York without finding a place to quench one's thirst, unless it be a restaurant, saloon, or soda fountain, is a deplorable fact."  The family was still in the building in September 1944 when Philip S. Platt was appointed executive director of the New York Association for the Blind.

The building attracted a number of artistic residents.  Living here in 1926 were illustrator and painter Eliza Buffinton, landscape artist George M. Bruestle, illustrator Herman Pfeifer, and concert pianist Howard Brockway.

George M. Bruestle, 1931, © Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0119275

George Bruestle and his wife, the former Emma Thompson moved into 424 East 47th Street in 1925.  Born in 1872, he had studied at the Art Students League under H. Siddons Mowbray, and in Paris.  A member of the Lotus Club and the Salmagundi Club, by the time he and Emma moved into the building, his works were in the permanent collections of the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Reading Museum in Pennsylvania.  (Today his paintings hang in other prestigious institutions like the Smithsonian.)

Stewart Woodford Eames and his wife, the former Jessie D. MacNeal, were also initial residents.  Born in December 1866, Eames came from an old New York family and was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars.  He had recently retired from the H. B. Claflin Company, a drygoods concern, founded by his maternal grandfather Horace Bringham Claflin.

Not long after moving into 424 East 57th Street, Jessie Eames died.  In November 1930, Stewart leased a bedroom in their apartment to a 28-year-old architect, John A. Frank.  With the Depression slowing construction projects, Frank seems to have come to New York City from Pittsfield, Massachusetts in hopes of finding work.  His chances, however, were bleak.  A report issued by the American Institute of Architects on January 20, 1931 revealed that more than 500 architect were unemployed, and institute spokesperson Julian Clarence Levi, said some were "in desperate need."

Early on the morning of January 20, 1931, Stewart Woodford Eames attempted to enter the bathroom and found the door locked.  His knocking and calling brought no response, so he had the building superintendent open the door.  They walked into the bathroom to find a horrifying scene.  Frank was in the half-filled bathtub, having slit both wrists and ankles.  A note on a nearby chair said in part, "to live longer would only prolong the agony."

The following year, on February 9, 1932, the 66-year-old Eames was crossing Fifth Avenue at 57th Street when he was hit by an automobile.  He died at Flower Hospital several hours later.

Resident Luella A. Palmer had an impressive career at a time when women normally held more subservient roles in the workplace.  Never married, she began working as a kindergarten teacher in 1897.  On February 15, 1912 she was appointed assistant director of kindergartens and six years later was made director.  She still held that title when she died on January 13, 1934.  Her funeral was held in her apartment on January 16.

Newspapers printed the praises from colleagues like associate superintendent William E. Grady, who called her "a progressive school woman," and said "The kindergartens of our schools achieved, under her able direction, a place among those outstanding in this phase of the process of education."

Another outstanding educator living here at the time was Sarah M. Dean.  Also never married, she was an 1895 graduate of Radcliffe College.  After teaching high school in Newton Massachusetts, she became head of the history department of the Brearley School for girls, noted as one of the most esteemed private schools in New York.  She was later appointed its principal and held the position until her retirement in 1921.

In the spring of 1935, Vera Stretz rented a five-room apartment here, paying $100 a month rent (about $2,000 in 2023).  A graduate of New York University and former substitute school teacher, the 26-year-old had just taken a job as bookkeeper and secretary to Dr. Fritz Gebhardt.  A German native, the 43-year-old Gebhardt was a political scientist.

Vera Stretz's residency at 424 East 57th Street would last only six months.  A romantic affair developed between her and her employer, who lived at the Beekman Tower at 3 Mitchell Place.  Gebhardt convinced her to move there, in an apartment discreetly two floors below his.  Presumably he subsidized the higher rent, and he could certainly afford to.  His personal fortune was reported by The New York Sun to be approximately $5 million in today's money.

Gebhard proposed to Vera with a engagement ring containing "a large diamond circled by emeralds," according to The New York Sun.  But the love-struck young woman's world came crashing down when she discovered in November that her lover had a wife and family in Germany.  On the night of November 11, a Beekman Tower resident notified Leslie Taite, the assistant night manager, that he had heard gunshots.  Taite responded to the 21st floor.  The New York Sun reported, "Miss Stretz was sitting on a settee beside the elevator.  He nodded to her as he walked past, but she seemed lost in thought."

He found Gebhart's apartment door open, and inside was the scientist's body, dressed only in a nightshirt.  Patrolman Holden arrived shortly afterward.  Vera told him, "Yes, I did it.  I was on my way to the station house to give myself up."

Resident Clarence Burgher (here by 1939) graduated from Princeton University in 1885.  Rather than enter the family business (his grandfather had co-founded the sugar-refining firm of Burgher, Hurlburt & Livingston), he became an attorney and inventor.  An avid yachtsman, his pastime spilled over to his professional life.  He was retained by yacht clubs and steamship companies as counsel.  In 1899 he invented the subsurface torpedo and for a decade was president of the company that manufactured it.

Living with Burgher and his wife Edith was their son, Fairfax Carter Burgher, who had also attended Princeton, and a maid, Irenie Ingmire.  The family's country home was in Rye, New York.

When the United States entered World War I, Fairfax left school to become an army aviator.  Following the war Princeton awarded him an "honorary war diploma."  But Fairfax's chosen career following the war may have been a bit of a disappointment to his parents.  Going by the stage name "Fairfax," he was a professional magician.  On January 25, 1939 The New York Sun reported, "A crowd of old and young Princeton graduates is to gather in the Mary Murray Room of the White this afternoon at cocktail time for a special Princeton party honoring Fairfax, socially prominent magician and fellow alumnus who entertains there."

An aspiring actor, as well, Fairfax played the role of Bersonin in the 1922 silent film The Prisoner of Zenda, and had a small part in the short 1929 film A Princess of Destiny.  Although his career continued to be chiefly as a magician, he would appear in television shows in the 1950s such as I Spy and Pulitzer Prize Playhouse.

The 49-year-old Fairfax was still living with his parents here as late as 1946.

The Billboard, October 26, 1946

Living here in 1980 was Carol Louise Conrad.  When she had to leave town on business for an extended period, she sought permission from the landlord, Third Sutton, to sublet her apartment to Mary Lou McGlynn.  Third Sutton replied with a letter dated September 19, 1980 denying that permission, but giving no reason.  Instead, the firm offered to allow Conrad to break her lease without penalty.

Conrad sued and in October won her case.  The ruling was upheld on appeal, the five-judge panel saying that a landlord's refusal to allow a sublet had to come with a reason.  "If he does not give a reason, the landlord has, in effect, consented to the sublet," said the court.  David Saxe, counsel for the Center for Consumer Advocacy, Inc. called it an "impressive and forward-looking decision for tenant rights."

Mann & MacNeille's 424 East 57th Street--a somber departure from the other Jazz Age buildings that were going up in the neighborhood in 1925--is little changed since those early years when this section of Manhattan was changing from what The New York Times had called "a slum" to one of the city's most exclusive residential districts.

photographs by the author

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Emery Roth's 1926 No. 5 East 57th Street

In 1880 the Bernheimer mansion at No. 5 East 57^th Street was completed at a cost of $40,000—a little over $950,000 in 2016 dollars.   When Luther Kountz purchased what The New York Times described as the “overlarge” and “handsome” residence in December 1889, he paid $110,000; nearly three times its original cost.

Luther and Annie Parsons Ward Kountze enjoyed the lifestyles of Manhattan’s elite.  Luther was the head of Kountze Brothers, a Wall Street banking firm; and Annie was descended from the Barclays, DeLanceys and the Livingstons.  The couple had four children; one of which, Helen, was married to Robert L. Livingston.  When she died unexpectedly in 1904, her funeral was held in the Kountze mansion.

Kountze, now widowed, died in the 57^th Street house on April 17, 1918 at the age of 76.  By now the once-exclusive residential neighborhood had greatly changed.  While a few opulent mansions held on, most of the millionaires had relocated further up Fifth Avenue along Central Park; their former homes replaced by commercial buildings.

On a single day in 1925 William Randolph Hearst and Arthur Brisbane announced their plans to erect “a group of commercial” buildings on East 57^th Street, and one on West 54^th.   Among the 14 structures being demolished was No. 5 East 57^th Street.

The New York Times reported on June 13 that the project included “a twenty-story office and store building at 5 East Fifty-seventh Street.”  It added that the “clearing of the sites…will see the passing of the old home of Mrs. Luther Kountze, for many years a social leader in New York.”

The old mansions that survived around the newly-completed building would soon be gone.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Prolific architect Emery Roth went to work designing all but one of the Hearst-Brisbane buildings.  For No. 5l East 57^th Street he concocted a Gothic-Meets-Art Deco design which emphasized the verticality of the 22-story skyscraper.  Alternating bricks in the upper piers ran uninterrupted, zipper-like, drawing the eye upward eight stories.  The spandrels between were filled with crisp Art Deco panels which stood in stark contrast with the fussy decoration of the lowest and uppermost floors.

Eagles, seemingly ready to fly away, perch on niches which double as flag pole housings.

Roth took the recent 1916 “set-back law” to heart.  The legislation required the upper floors of skyscrapers to be stairstepped back; allowing sunlight to reach the streets below.   The setbacks of No. 5 were exaggerated, proving outside space for the few fortunate tenants willing to pay for the amenity.  The tenants of those upper floors enjoyed sunlight from all sides as well, a distinct advantage.

The surrounding neighborhood had, for more than a decade, been the center of Manhattan’s art and antiques trade.  Immediately upon its completion No. 5 East 57^th Street saw the arrival of some of New York’s most respected galleries and dealers.  Among the first was the Babcock Galleries, founded in 1853, which specialized in the works of American artists.  The gallery moved from No. 19 East 49^th Street to No. 5 East 57^th Street in the summer of 1927.  The caliber of the artwork displayed and sold by Babcock Galleries was evidenced in December that year, when Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Thomas Jefferson was put on display.

Geometric designs give way to more traditional decoration at the upper floors.

Another firm specializing in American artists was the Dudensing Galleries.  It promoted the careers of budding artists by holding an annual competition of American artists.  The winners of the 1928 contest were announced on New Year’s Day 1929.  They included young Robert Fawcett who, despite his training as a fine artist, would go on to achieve fame as an illustrator for periodicals like The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Holiday and Cosmopolitan.

On an upper floor was the workshop of violin maker John Friedrich who came from Germany in 1883.  Friedrich’s violins had been exhibited at several world’s fairs and won him many prizes.  In 1935 he helped in the search for a stolen 18^th century cello by Petrus Guarnerius, valued at around $10,000. 

Friedrich had worked on the instrument “a dozen times” and he was able to identify “the work he had done on it to bring it back to the standards set by the family, whose head was a fellow-artisan with Antonio Stradivari,” reported The New York Times.

While the galleries in the building sold valuable paintings and John Friedrich worked on priceless violins and cellos, other New Yorkers were suffering the Great Depression.  In 1933 Mrs. William Randolph Hearst took an office in the building to direct New York City activities for Eleanor Roosevelt’s “canteens for unemployed women.”  On May 22, 1933 the Seventh Regiment Armory at Park Avenue and 66^th Street was taken over for a ball to benefit the cause.  Mrs. Roosevelt personally appeared at the function that hoped to raise $50,000 to maintain the canteens.

The canteens, or “rest rooms,” were located at No. 22 East 38^th Street and No. 247 Lexington Avenue.  Open every day until 5:00, The Times described them as “gathering places for unemployed girls looking for work.  Light luncheons are served free and a congenial atmosphere of friendliness is maintained by several volunteers.”

Not everything the Roosevelts did during the Depression years was universally admired.  On March 26, 1936 a new gallery called the Defenders of Democracy opened with an exhibition of ten murals described by The Times as a “pictorial jeremiad against New Deal personalities and policies.”  President Franklin Roosevelt was “derided” in the satirical murals.

The exhibition was still going on three weeks later when, on April 14, the United States Navy ordered that the four guards at the gallery would have to change their uniforms.  The Navy said the military-type outfits were “too much like Marines.”

Later that year, on November 16, a less controversial gallery moved in.  The Newhouse Galleries, operated by Clyde Mortimer Newhouse, had been founded by his grandfather in 1878 in the Midwest.  The firm moved to New York City in 1905, offering American paintings by still-living artists like Winslow Homer, William Chase and Hudson River School painters like Jasper Francis Cropsey.  It now leased three floors in the 57^th Street building and hired John Russell Pope to renovate the space.

The New York Times described the new galleries as “sumptuous” and noted “The main exhibition room is decorated in modified Moorish or Spanish style, with white walls, rough in texture, arches and a deeply paneled ceiling.  On an open mezzanine at the rear may be glimpsed the library, and several smaller exhibition rooms on both floors add to the facilities.”

Just a week after opening in its new location, The Newhouse Galleries sold two masterpieces which were then donated anonymously to the Fine Art Gallery of San Diego.  The paintings were a portrait of Philip II as a child by Alonso Sanchez Coello, and a panel portraying St. John the Evangelist by The St. Nicholas’s Master.

The pieces were the first of several similar masterworks sold by Newhouse Galleries here.  In February 1937 it sold El Greco’s “St. Francis;” in May that year the Art Institute of Chicago purchased John Singleton Copley’s 1777 portrait of Squire Hyde; and a month later the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington DC bought Goya’s “Portrait of St. Peter.”

Another high-end gallery in the building was the Douglas Curry Galleries.  It staged an exhibition of rare pieces of early American pewter, mostly from private collections, in February 1938.  That year the Tonying Gallery, which specialized in Asian art, opened here as well.

Not all of the tenants, of course, were high-end art dealers.  In 1938 Donald May ran his posh jewelry store in the building.  He discovered that year that while his customers came from the most prominent families; the Depression dealt a hard blow to even some of these.

Ten Broeck M. Terhune was described by a newspaper as “socially prominent.”  On January 14, 1938 the 50-year old walked into Donald May’s shop and left with a diamond ring, a diamond clip and a diamond and platinum bracelet, valued together at $6,000 (more in the neighborhood of $100,000 today).  Terhune signed a “memoranda” saying he intended to sell the pieces “to friends” and would return with the money.  He did not.

Nearly two months later Donald May had Terhune arrested.  The Times reported “Detectives..said these gems were accounted for in pawn tickets in the prisoner’s possession.”  The disgraced former millionaire was charged not only with the theft of May’s jewelry, but with between $40,000 and $50,000 in other such larcenies.

The Newhouse Galleries left in 1938, moving down the street to No. 15 East 57^th Street; but the building continued to house upscale galleries.  On October 16, 1940 the Jacques Seligmann Galleries moved from next door at No. 3 to No. 5 East 57^th Street.   Like the Newhouse Galleries, it dealt in masterworks.  In 1943 it sold a Renoir and a Goya to the Cleveland Museum of Art; and in 1945 that museum purchased Picasso’s 1903 “La Vie.”

While the building continued to attract galleries (Orrefors Galleries opened in February 1940, for instance, and Israel Sachs, one of the nation’s foremost authorizes on antique furniture, sold 18^th century American furniture and antiques here), it also housed the offices of several noted architects.  In November 1940 William H. Deacy took space.  He was followed by Herrie T. Lindeberg, designer of expansive country houses, who leased the entire 12^th floor in April 1941.  The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merill would also take space in the building.

At mid-century the ground floor space was occupied by the well-known Drury Lane Restaurant.  In 1956 the newly-formed Biograph Television Company took space on an upper floor.  The purpose of the organization was to rescue the endangered silent motion pictures produced by the Biograph Studios.  The firm bought up more than 10,000 rolls of film, most produced by D. W. Griffith, with stars like Lillian Gish, the Pickfords and Mae Marsh.

In 1986 Chanel’s first New York store opened in the building; introducing its famed Chanel No. 5 eau de parfum that year.

Although the lower two floors of Emery Roth’s 1926 hybrid were obliterated for a high-paying retail tenant; the upper floors survive intact—a relic of a time when wealthy Jazz Age developers like William Randolph Hearst and Arthur Brisbane were changing the face of Manhattan.

photographs by the author