The Dr. John E. and Katherine MacKenty House - 111 East 61st Street

 

Adolphus Smedberg and his wife, the former Mary Ludlow Morton, were both born in 1835.  They had a son, Harry Ashton, and were living in the newly built, brownstone-fronted house at 111 East 61st Street in 1872 when their second son, Adolphus, Jr., was born.  Apparently sharing the residence with the Smedbergs were Adolphus's sister and her husband.  William Adams, Smedberg's brother-in-law, died here on January 21, 1876 at the age of 61.

The Smedbergs appear to have moved in 1878, when Harry was attending Columbia.  The following year, the Ellison family occupied the house, and by the mid-1880s, it was home to the Wattles family.  On December 23, 1886, the New-York Tribune announced, "Mrs. Wattles held a large reception and tea yesterday from 4 until 6 o'clock, at No. 111 East Sixty-first-st., to introduce her daughter, Miss Wattles.  Over two hundred guests called."

Harris D. and Elizabeth B. Colt, real estate operators, purchased the "four-story stone front dwelling," as reported by the Real Estate Record & Guide, in 1901.  They leased it to a succession of well-to-do families.

In an article titled "Some Recent Flittings" on November 11, 1906, for instance, The New York Times noted, "Mr. and Mrs. John Wesley Peale [moved] to their new house, 111 East Sixty-first Street."  

Following the Peales here were Charles A. Shearson, his wife, the former Jessie McCullough, and their adopted son, Charles, Jr.  Born in Galt, Ontario, Canada in 1856, Shearson came to New York in 1903.  He was a member of the New York Cotton Exchange and a partner in the cotton brokerage firm of Shearson, Hammill & Co.  His brother, Edward, also lived in the East 61st Street house.

In the early 20th century, births, deaths, and minor operations took place within the homes of the affluent.  On the evening of January 22, 1910, the 54-year-old Edward A. Shearson, Sr. underwent an appendicitis operation in his bedroom.  He did not survive.

In August the following year, Arthur A. Fowler and his wife, the former Elizabeth Bonright, signed a lease.  They appear to have remained here until May 29, 1919, when the house was sold to Dr. Alfred Wild Gardener and his wife, Mary E., for $60,000 (about $1 million in 2025 terms).

Shortly after Mary's death in February 1923, Dr. Wild sold 111 East 61st Street to Dr. John Edmund MacKenty and his wife, the former Katherine Gilman.  Before moving in, they hired architect Edward S. Hewitt to drastically remodel the outdated brownstone.

Hewitt stripped off the facade, removed the stoop, and pulled the front forward to the property line.  The new projected portion rose four stories.  The fifth floor sat back to provide a screened sleeping porch.  Hewitt's spartan neo-Georgian design included a handsome marble entrance with engaged columns and an elegant swan's neck pediment and urn.  The Flemish bond brick of the upper floors were trimmed with marble sills and reeded lintels, their ends decorated with carved rosettes.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Born in 1869, MacKenty married Katherine in 1898 in Washington D.C.  She was the daughter of Colonel Jeremiah H. Gilman and Katharine Rogers.  The couple had two children, John Gilman, and Katharine (known familiarly as Kit).  Kit was married to Reverend Wilhelminus B. Bryan, Jr. and lived in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Dr. John Edmund MacKenty had joined the medical faculty of McGill University in 1892.  He was now the senior surgeon at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital.  His medical office on the ground floor was part of the renovations to 111 East 61st Street.  In 1925, the year they moved in, he invented a device that enabled "a person whose larynx had been removed to speak," as described by the New York Evening Post.  

It may have been Katherine's growing up in a military family that prompted her interest in the Army Relief Society.  In 1925, she was elected assistant treasurer of the organization.  She was also highly involved in the Women's City Club.  That same year, she was elected its director.

John Gilman MacKenty had graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1923.  When the family moved into 111 East 61st Street, he was working with the Radio Corporation of America (later RCA).  On February 27, 1926, his engagement to Katharine Walker was announced.  His marriage would not only add another Katharine to the family, but another connection to the military.  Katharine's grandfather was Colonel Aldace F. Walker.

Dr. MacKenty routinely submitted technical articles to medical journals, and in 1927 published two books, Cancer of the Larynx and Nursing in Diseases of the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat.

On the night of December 11, 1931, MacKenty died in the East 61st Street house.  He was 62 years old.

Katherine leased the ground floor office to Dr. Otto V. M. Schmidt.  She remained here until suffering a fatal heart attack on November 29, 1938 at the age of 62.  Her funeral was held in the house on December 1.

On April 27, 1939, The New York Sun reported that Katherine MacKenty's estate had sold 111 East 61st Street to Regency Hall, Inc.  The article described the residence as "containing fifteen rooms and four baths," adding, "The house will be used for combination residence and doctor's office."

The office was used by several physicians.  Dr. William Lawrence Gatewood was here in 1946, and Drs. George A. Friedman and Nathan Millman were listed here in 1948 and 1949 respectively.

The end of the upper floors as a single-family home came in 1953 when they were converted to apartments.  Doctors in the ground floor office came and went throughout the subsequent years, perhaps the longest to remain being Dr. Percy Ryberg, here in the 1960s and '70s.

There are still apartments above the doctor's office today.  Although callous replacement windows disfigure Hewitt's neo-Georgian design, the house otherwise looks much as it did when the MacKentys remodeled the vintage 1870s rowhouse.

photograph by the author

The Jacob and Mina Shire House - 109 East 61st Street

 

photograph by the author

Bentley Squier was a major player in the development of the Upper East Side in the years following the Civil War.  In 1870 he broke ground for a brownstone-faced residence at 109 East 61st Street.  It was most likely designed by D. & J. Jardine, with which he worked repeatedly. 

Squier sold the completed, 19-foot-wide house to Henry Grossmayer on February 25, 1871 for $28,000 (about $742,000 in 2025 terms).  Four stories tall above a high English basement, its Italianate design included an arched, double-doored entrance with a foliate keystone and brackets that upheld a triangular pediment.  The architrave frames of the openings wore prominent molded cornices.  A complex pressed metal cornice with foliate brackets crowned the design.

Henry Grossmayer was a cotton merchant.  The recent war had greatly disrupted his business.  To keep the Confederate government from seizing his bales of cotton, he had warehoused it in Savannah under the name of a Southerner, Abraham Einstein.  A later court order explained, "It remained in store in this manner until the capture of Savannah, in December, 1864, when it was reported to our military forces as Grossmayer's cotton, and taken by them and sent to New York and sold."

On December 1, 1879, Grossmayer sold 109 East 61st Street to Jacob Shire and his wife, the former Mina Milius, for $20,000.  A partner in the shirt manufacturing firm Miller, Shire & Co., Jacob Shire was born in Germany in 1834 and his wife was born in Ohio in 1844.  The couple were the parents of eight children: Leo, Albert, Tillie, Simeon (known as Sidney), Helen, Lawrence Crawford, Harold and Edward Isaac.  The children ranged from 5 to 14 years old when the family moved in.

Twelve years later, tragedy rocked the Shire family.  As Sidney got older, he became, "rather wild, and as he had plenty of money to spend, he...associated with undesirable companions," according to Annie E. Griffin.  She was the mother of 20-year-old Minnie Griffin, who moved into Annie's apartment on West 59th Street from Chicago in 1890.  Shortly afterward, Minnie and Sidney Shire met and, according to Annie, "I think the girl had a good influence over him."

Within months, 22-year-old Sidney became engaged to Minnie Griffin.  His family, however, was opposed to the relationship.  Jacob Shire later said, "We all talked to him in turn--that is, the different members of the family, but it seemed to have no effect upon him.  He was probably infatuated with her."

The last of those talks came on the afternoon of July 7, 1891 when Sidney, "had a stormy interview with his father," as worded by The Evening World.  Jacob demanded that he give up Minnie.  If not, "he must leave his house."  Jacob threatened that he would "have nothing more to do with him unless he obeyed his wishes."  The Evening World said, "The young man...was very much cut up over his father's treatment of him, and said he would never desert the girl he loved."

That evening Sidney visited the Griffin apartment.  He told Minnie of the conversation and vowed to leave his family.  Minnie, however, told him "he ought to regard his father's wishes, and that at least he ought not to give up his home."  

At around midnight, Sidney got up and put his hat on.  He kissed Minnie good night, then asked if he could step into the bedroom to check himself in the mirror.  As Minnie waited by the door, she suddenly heard a gunshot and "a heavy fall."

The Evening World, July 8, 1891 (copyright expired)

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle indiscreetly reported that Sidney, "blew his brains out."  The New York Press said, "Just before 1 a.m. a fierce ringing of the bell at No. 109 East Sixty-first street led to the announcement to Jacob Shire and his wife and to Simeon's brothers and sister the news that the boy had killed himself in his distraction between love and duty to his parents and his infatuation for Miss Minnie."

Jacob Shire, accompanied with two sons, including Albert (who was in the jewelry business), drove to the Griffin apartment.  "The father was so prostrated by the news of his son's shocking death that he would not go inside to look at his body but remained in the carriage while the brothers entered the house and learned the details of the shooting," recounted The Evening World.  Simon's body was brought to the East 61st Street house around 6 a.m.

At the time of the tragedy, the youngest child, Edward Isaac, was 17 years old.  Two years later he was enrolled in both Columbia College's School of Arts and in The School of Mines.  He graduated from the latter in 1896 with a Ph.B. degree.

After living here for nearly a quarter of a century, Jacob and Mina Shire sold 109 East 61st Street on June 2, 1902 to Josephine Van Boskerck for $35,000 (about $1.3 million today).  The widow of John W. Van Boskerck, Josephine's residency would be relatively short.  She died here on February 5, 1908.  Her funeral was held in the parlor three days later.

The house was leased by Josephine's daughter, Lizzie, to Charles Cashman.  The unmarried 77-year-old died in the house on March 12, 1909.  As had been the case with Josephine Van Boskerck, his funeral was held in the house.  Later that year, on November 23, 1909, The New York Times reported that "Miss L. Boskirck" [sic] had leased the house.  Her new tenants were the De Witt Davidson family.

De Witt Davidson was a jeweler.  In 1913, his wife hired a polished maid named Marie despite the 24-year-old's having no references.  On October 13, Mrs. Davidson told a reporter from the New York Herald that she "was somewhat uneasy at having taken her into the household without proper recommendations, [but] she had never had so fine a servant before."

The newspaper described Marie as Viennese, saying, "In appearance, Marie is more than the ordinary maid.  She is prepossessing and neat, short of stature, with pleasing but not striking features, and has a wealth of beautiful hair."  Mrs. Davidson noticed that "her hands were soft and white."  Marie's hands, her refined manners, and her wardrobe strongly suggested that she was no run of the mill servant girl.  The New York Herald reported,

With her neat trunk, which bore labels from every country, installed in her room, Marie began unpacking her belongings, only to find that she had nothing suitable to work in.  She took out a handsome skating costume, but laid that aside as being inappropriate.  Then a tennis costume was tried on with white buckskin tennis shoes, and as that was the nearest approach to the uniform of a well groomed servant she decided to wear the tennis outfit until she could have made some plain gingham and calico dresses, with white aprons.

There were other hints to Marie's identity in her trunk.  She removed "family jewels valued at several hundred dollars, which she asked her employers to place in safe keeping for her until she could rent a box in a safety deposit vault," said the article.  The other clues in the trunk were: "a dainty bridal gown with orange blossoms, a lace veil, satin slippers and all the accessories of a trousseau."  Residents along East 61st Street quickly concocted rumors.  "Neighbors who have heard about Marie are wondering if she is not some person of position and wealth disguising herself as an upstairs girl," said the article.  

Pressed by the family, their "upstairs girl" obliquely explained how she came to work in their home.  Without betraying her true name, Marie said she "fled from her home in Europe to escape being wedded to a man she did not love."  The intended groom, she said, "is a man of high status," and hinted, said the New York Herald, that she "herself is far above the ordinary class to which she has assigned herself."  The mysterious Marie remained with the Davidsons for some time.

On April 30, 1914, the New York Press reported that Lizzie Van Boskerck had sold 109 East 61st Street to Dr. Louis Faugeres Bishop.  Born on March 14, 1864 in Brunswick, New Jersey, Bishop was a graduate of Rutgers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons.  In 1899 he married Charlotte D. Gruner.  The couple had one son, Dr. Henry Bishop.

Louis was president of The Good Samaritan Dispensary and consultant in heart and blood vessel diseases at the Lincoln Hospital.  The family occupied the upper floors of the house and Bishop opened his Cardiac Institute in the lower portion.

The Medical Times, March 1918 (copyright expired)

The Bishops rarely appeared in the society columns, but on November 17, 1923, The Sun reported, "Dr. and Mrs. Louis Faugeres Bishop are giving a reception this afternoon at their home, 109 East Sixty-first street, to celebrate the silver anniversary of their wedding."

In 1927, the Bishops advertised the house for rent.  The ad in the Medical Journal and Record read:

Physicians House, arrangement suitable for a group, 15 rooms, 4 baths, large basement extending the length of the lot with skylight studio in the rear.

It was rented by Marion B. Herrschaft, the head of the Parkside Special School.  Termed by Hershaft as a "foundation training school," her listing in Private Schools that year described it as "A day school for children who find progress difficult in regular schools.  Montessori principles followed."  The school accepted pupils of both genders, from 7 to 15 years old.

Child Study, October 1927 (copyright expired)

The venture within the East 61st Street house was fleeting.  On June 4, 1928, the New York Evening Post reported that Bishop sold the house to The 535 Park Avenue, Inc.  With Prohibition in effect, the house was converted to a nightclub called Malborough House, run by Jim Moriarty.  In her 2021 Madam, The Biography of Polly Adler, Debby Applegate writes, "The Marlborough House catered to the collegians with the approval of their parents, who knew [the] establishment was strictly upper class."

It was most likely during the conversion to the Malborough House that the parlor windows were replaced a vast window with leaded and stained-glass panes.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In June 1931, Leonard Leaman signed a 15-year lease on the house and converted it to the Opera Club.  The first problem with law enforcement came on January 19, 1932.  The Norwich Sun reported, "The Opera Club, a resort at 109 East Sixty-First street, with a thirty-foot bar in the basement, was raided by agents yesterday afternoon," who seized 108 bottles of liquor.  Surprisingly, the 30 customers in the space at the time were not arrested.  The article said they "were ordered to depart after paying their checks."  The staff, on the other hand, were not so lucky.  Seven employees--the manager, bartender and waiters--were arrested.

Prohibition Director McCampbell intended that the Opera Club could not reopen.  The New York Sun reported that he ordered the club to be "dismantled," while warning that the "property must not be destroyed."  The Evening Star of Washington, D.C. reported that on January 21, "a half dozen laborers were stripping the Opera Club at 109 East Sixty-first street, and were trucking the furnishings away to the Federal warehouse."

The Opera Club did reopen, however, and was still in operation as late as 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition.  In 1937 the house was converted to apartments.   As early as 1983, the stone stoop was removed and a staircase to the side installed.  Around 1986 the upper floors were returned to a single-family home and the basement converted to a commercial space. 

The Altered Charles Steele Carriage House - 107 East 61st Street

photograph by the author

Born in 1857, Charles Steele was the son of esteemed attorney Isaac Nevett Steele and the former Rosa Londonia Nelson.  He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1880 and married Ann Gordon French five years later.  The couple had three daughters, Eleanor Herndon, born in 1893; Nancy Gordon, born the following year; and Kathryne Nevitt, who arrived in 1896.

In the last decade of the 19th century, Steele did legal work for Charles H. Coster, a partner of J. P. Morgan, in reorganizing the firm's railroad interests.  Coster died in March 1900 and, reportedly, during his funeral J. P. Morgan offered Steele a partnership within the firm. 

Charles and Ann (known as "Nannie) erected an English Tudor-style country place in Southampton, Long Island in 1899.  The couple's financial and social status was further exemplified when they purchased the magnificent Edith and Ernesto Fabbri mansion at 11 East 62nd Street in 1912.

By 1916, it appears that the Steeles had given up their horses and carriages in favor of motorcars.  On January 12, 1916, The New York Times reported that Charles Steele had purchased the property at 107 East 61st Street from Francis Muldoon.  The high-stooped brownstone had been the home of Edward and Anne Miller in the early 1880s.  It would not survive much longer.

Two months later, on March 25, 1916, the Record & Guide reported that George E. Wood was preparing plans for a "three-story brick garage" for Charles Steele.  It would cost $20,000 to construct, or about $573,000 in 2025.

Wood's charming neo-Tudor-style garage was completed within the year.  A stone base with a centered garage bay supported two floors of gray brick trimmed in limestone.  A grouping of three small-paned windows at the second floor sat within a quoined frame.  A quartet of arched openings on the third floor, also with small panes, shared a continuous stone eyebrow.  The attic floor took the form of a steep, metal-clad mansard.  Its acute gable held a blind lancet window.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Unlike carriage houses, which required space for bales of hay and tackle and such, garages needed much less storage.  The upper floors held apartments, originally for the Steeles' driver and, perhaps, a mechanic.  

But as early as 1921, James McCormick and his wife occupied the upper floors.  The couple's avocation was breeding Boston Terriers.  In 1921, for instance, they registered Rival's Lady None Such; and that year James McCormick advertised in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, offering three of his male dogs--Captain Altawood, Altawood's Boy, and Rival's Surprise--at stud.  (Captain Altawood came with the priciest fee, equal to about $350 today.)  The advertisement added, "Puppies for Sale."

Nannie Steele died in the couple's East 62nd Street mansion on December 18, 1932.  (By then the couple had a second Long Island estate, this one in Old Westbury.)  Charles died seven years later, on August 5, 1939.  

Four decades later, in 1982, a massive, three-year renovation began.  The ground floor was given a sleek remodeling that harkened to the former carriage bay.  Two additional floors, with no attempt to honor George E. Wood's Tudoresque design, were added.  The result was what one realtor described as a "reverse house," meaning that the living areas were on the top.  The ground floor of the single-family mansion now had a two-car garage, recreation room and swimming pool.  The second and third floors held bedrooms and a greenhouse.  On the fourth floor were a "den" and one bedroom.  The fifth floor held a "gallery," dining, living room, and kitchen.  What was described as a mezzanine level housed a studio.

The renovated structure in 1988.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In marketing the $6.9 million residence in 1990, broker Phyllis Gallaway told The New York Times, "This place appeals more to show business people who are a little more avant-garde."  The new owners initiated an exterior remodeling the following year.  The base and upper two floors were given a sleek, white facade.

J. M. Felson's 1942 223 East 61st Street

image via compass.com

Born in Russia in 1886, Jacob M. Felson received his architectural training at Cooper Union, opening his office in 1910.  At the time, the Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church, organized during the Civil War, worshipped in the distinctive Victorian Gothic building it had erected in the 1870s.  

When this photograph was taken in 1941, the church's days were numbered.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Sixty-First Methodist Episcopal Church merged with Christ Church Methodist at 60th Street and Park Avenue in 1933.  The following year, the congregation of the French Episcopal Eglise du Saint-Espirit moved into the church.  Just over a decade later, on October 7, 1941, The New York Sun reported that the Valcourt Realty Corporation had purchased the building.  "A six-story apartment house to contain forty-nine suites and 124 rooms and estimated to cost $200,000 will be erected on the site," said the article.  (The construction cost would translate to about $4 million in 2025.)

Throughout the Depression years, J. M. Felson had kept busy designing Art Deco and Art Moderne-style apartment buildings.  His design for 223 East 61st Street would be different--a 1940s take on Georgian architecture.  While Felson's fenestration--casements and tripartite windows--was distinctly modern, he gave the red brick facade details inspired from early American precedents.

The arched, double-doored entrance sat within a Georgian frame of fluted Doric columns, topped with an elegant swan's head pediment and stylized pineapple.  The end windows wore splayed brick lintels with stone keystones.  The building was crowned by a brick pediment decorated by a central shield flanked by swags.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

The apartments, eight per floor, became home to middle- and upper-middle class tenants.  Among the initial residents were Faith B. LeLacheur and Clarissa Cooper.  A graduate of Wellesley College, Faith was a nurse.  Clarissa was a teacher of French and a translator of French literary works.  She received her master and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.  In the 1920s she obtained her pilot license and was an award-winning driver for the American Women's Voluntary Service during World War II.  The couple decorated their apartment, according to The New York Times later, with an "extensive array of antiques."

Other early residents were journalist Robert Simpson and his wife, the former Luz Rudolph.  Born in 1896, Simpson was the son of a journalist.  Like his father, Robert worked for newspapers in Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia before relocating to New York and joining The Evening World.

photograph by Lowell Cochran

In 1929, Simpson joined The New York Times on the city desk.  He would eventually focus on scientific issues, especially plant genetics and world problems.  While working at The Times, he contributed many articles to other popular and trade periodicals, like his scathing article for The Saturday Review that rebutted claims of Soviet geneticist, T. D. Lysenko.

Simpson left The New York Times in 1959 and joined the public relations firm of Thomas J. Deegan Company.  He was public relations director for the Preakness at Pimlico Race Track in 1962, and was publicity consultant for Pan American Airways.

Typical of the Simpsons' neighbors in the building were Russell P. Kantor and his wife, the former Mabel Chamberlain.  Kantor was president of Victor Gloves, Inc. and grand director of ceremonies of the Masonic Order's Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Clarissa Burnham and Faith B. LeLacheur still occupied their apartment in 1979.  Clarissa died on June 29 that year at the age of 84.

Vivian Williams cleaned the couple's apartment once a week.  Three months after Clarissa's death, on October 17, 1979, Williams entered and immediately noticed a grandfather clock knocked to the floor in the entry hall.  She discovered Faith LeLacheur's body in the bedroom.  The 81-year-old had been murdered by "multiple stab wounds," according to police, who would say only, "that she had 'possibly' been raped," reported The New York Times.  The apartment had not been ransacked and, apparently, not robbed.  There were indications, however, that the elderly woman had valiantly struggled with her attacker.

There are still eight apartments per floor and, outwardly, little has changed to J. M. Felson's reserved design.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post.

The 1869 John Hampton House - 110 East 61st Street

 

When the stoop was removed, the door was lowered, resulting in comical proportions and an absurd transom.

In the early 1870s, John Hampton, a dealer in grates, and his family lived at 110 East 61st Street, one of a row of identical Italianate-style homes erected in 1869.  The three-story-and-basement house was faced in brownstone and was 18.6-feet-wide.  While the upper floor windows wore prominent cornices, the openings of the parlor floor were distinguished with Renaissance inspired pediments.

In 1876, Julius and Ida Binge purchased 110 East 61st Street.  Julius was a partner in the brokerage firm Binge & Curie, founded in 1868 with Charles Curie.  The couple had a daughter, Lottie.  The Daily Canadian would later say the family, "possessed wealth estimated at several million dollars."  It was most likely the Binges who added an attic floor with two prominent dormers.

An expert on customs duties, Binge filed many claims for over-charges.  The Daily Canadian said, "It is said that these over-charges on customs amounted to nearly $4,000,000, and that he received $1,000,000 for his service."

Julius Binge was focused on a more personal overcharge in 1878.  He won a suit against the city that year, awarding him $10.40, the "amount of Croton water rent, for 1876, paid twice on premises No. 110 East 61st street."  

Decades later, in 1907, readers of newspapers across the country would be riveted by the shocking arrest of Lottie, who was now married to Leopold Wallau.  After Julius's death, Ida had moved into the Wallau house at 68 East 80th Street.  On February 18, 1907, The Cairo Bulletin ran the headline, "Woman Held For Mother's Death," and reported that Lottie was charged with first-degree murder in Ida's sudden death.  The Daily Canadian wrote, "Were Mrs. Binge's days of torturing invalidism shortened by poison administered by a sympathetic hand--an act of mercy that the patient daily begged from daughter, doctor and friend?"

Ida Binge, The Kentucky Post, February 21, 1907 (copyright expired)

Ida had suffered with "a cancerous growth [that] was literally eating through her whole system," said The Daily Canadian.  Public sympathy, according to numerous newspapers, was on Lottie's side.  And on March 19, 1907, a grand jury dismissed the charges.  The Scranton Truth ran a headline, "Mrs. Wallau, Freed Of Charge Of Killing Her Mother."

In the meantime, Julius and Ida Binge had sold 110 East 61st Street to Moses and Amelia Ottinger in 1880.  The Jewish Telegraphic Agency would recall decades later, Ottinger, "was born in Wittemberg [sic], Germany, immigrating to this country with the parents at the age of three."  Amelia, said the article, was "a New York city girl who was in the first graduating class of Normal, now Hunter College."  The couple had a son, Nathan, who entered New York City College in 1888.

Moses Ottinger and his brother Marx were real estate operators.  Among the structures they would erect while Moses lived here were 20 Bridge Street and the Appleton Building at 72 Fifth Avenue.

The Ottingers remained here until April 1899, when they sold the house to M. H. Campbell, triggering several rapid turnovers.  In 1902, Julia P. Jay purchased it for $45,000 (about $1.6 million in 2025), and sold it the following year to newlyweds Joseph Frailey Smith (known professionally as J. Frailey Smith) and his wife, the former Annie May Callaway.  The couple were married on November 20, 1902.

Born in Philadelphia in 1871, J. Frailey Smith was an attorney, described by The New York Times as "a well-known clubman and a Director in several corporations."  He was vice president of the Metallic Decorating Company, and a director in the Phenix Cap Company and the Phenix Cork Company. 

On October 23, 1906, The New York Times reported that Smith was said, "late last night to be dying in Roosevelt Hospital of injuries received in a fight early last Wednesday morning at Forty-fifth Street and Broadway."  The article said, "Every attempt was made to keep the facts from coming out, and the only details of the matter on the court records are contained in a short affidavit."  

The attempt to keep the embarrassing details from the public was understandable.  J. Frailey Smith had been with "a well-known actress playing in a Broadway Theatre," at Broadway and 45th Street around 3:00 a.m.  Smith became involved with a "dispute" with three men that escalated into fisticuffs.  Smith was knocked backward, fracturing his skull on the sidewalk.

Despite Smith's tenuous situation, he survived both his injuries and, apparently, the scandal of infidelity.  Annie was pregnant at the time of the humiliating coverage.  Five months later, on March 29, 1907, the couple had a son, Samuel Callaway.

Joseph Frailey Smith died on March 1, 1910 at the age of 38.  Annie left 110 East 61st Street in October 1912, when she rented it to Edward M. McIlvaine.  

The next year, on November 9, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Devereux Milburn will live at 110 East Sixty-first Street during the Winter season."  A week before the article, on November 2, The Sun published a half-page spread about the society marriage of Devereux Milburn and Nancy Gordon Steele.

Nancy Gordon Steele on her wedding day.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

A graduate of Oxford University, Devereux Milburn was the son of millionaire John G. Milburn.  An attorney, he was called by The Sun as, "the well known polo player."  Indeed, Western New York Heritage would describe Milburn as being, "remembered as possibly the best polo player this country ever produced."  

The Milburns in 1913, the year they rented 110 East 61st Street.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Devereaux and Nancy Milburn left 110 East 61st Street in 1916.  That October, Annie Smith leased the house to senior vice president of the Guaranty Trust Company, Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy.  He was, as well, a director of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the New York Trust Company, and five other corporations.

Born in 1878, Murphy graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1903 (after having already served as a volunteer in the Spanish-American War).  During World War I, as a rank of lieutenant colonel, he organized the American Red Cross in Europe.  While living here in 1918, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for "his foresight, wisdom, and untiring efforts" and "marked ability as assistant chief of staff of the 42d Division" during the war.

Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy was living at 110 East 61st Street in 1918, when this photograph was taken.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

On July 24, 1920, The New York Times reported that Annie May Smith had sold 110 East 61st Street.  It was purchased by Frank T. Wall and his wife, the former Emily Unckles, who were married in 1905.  Wall was the treasurer of the Wall Rope Works, Inc.  The couple had one son, Fenwick W. Wall.  (Frank had five children from a former marriage.)  Wall was born in Williamsburgh, New York in 1856, the son of the first mayor of Williamsburgh.  (Williamsburgh would later lose the "h" and be consolidated into Brooklyn.)  The family's country home was in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Moving into the 61st Street house with the Wall family was Emily's widowed father, Thomas H. Unckles.  He died here on January 20, 1922 at the age of 88 and his funeral was held in the parlor on January 22.

The Walls were in Greenwich on June 30, 1928 when Frank T. Wall died "after a prolonged illness," according to the Cordage Trade Journal.  Unlike his father-in-law, his funeral was not held in the house, but at St. Bartholomew's Church.

Emily Wall sold 110 East 61st Street the following year.  It began a chapter that would have shocked its previous socialite owners.  The basement level was converted to what ostensibly was a restaurant, called Chez Richard.  But court documents regarding a case tried in 1931 noted that the restaurant, "110 East 61st Street [was] of the kind known in those days as 'speakeasies.'"  And Chez Richard is included in the long list of speakeasies documented in David Rosen's book, Prohibition New York City--Speakeasy Queen Texas Guinan, Blind Pigs, Drag Balls & More.

A renovation completed in 1937 resulted in furnished rooms throughout the house (the restaurant was now gone).  In the process, the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered below grade.

The house as it appeared in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1948, 29-year-old writer Paul de Man moved into a room here.  Remembered today as a literary critic and literary theorist, he was struggling at the time.  In his The Double Life of Paul de Man, Evelyn Barish writes, 

Moving while skipping out on the rent became his best and probably his only budgeting technique.  He located an apartment through an acquaintance at 110 East Sixty-first Street...The building was a classic brownstone, converted to walk-up apartments, where he stayed for a few months before moving to the low-rent Jane Street in Greenwich Village.

A second renovation, completed in 1955, resulted in two apartments per floor.  A second entrance, slightly below the original, was now accessed by a metal staircase.

The building's most celebrated tenant came in 1956 when newly married Woody Allen and Harlene Susan Rosen moved in.  The budding filmmaker and actor was 20 years old, his bride was 17.  David Evanier, writes in Woody: The Biography, "They soon moved into a one-room apartment at 110 East Sixty-first Street."  Like Paul de Man, their residency would be short.  They moved to West 75th Street before long.

It appeared that the end of the line for 110 East 61st Street was near in the 1980s.  The Ausnit family had amassed a large "inventory" of buildings along the block in the 1950s.  Together, they seemed to be ripe for development.  Instead, however, the family liquidated the properties, including 110 East 61st Street, in 1987.

There are still ten apartments in the building.  

photographs by Ted Leather

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post.

A House with a Designing Past - 116 East 61st Street

 

photo by Ted Leather

In June 1869, "several fashionable young gentlemen persisted in paying their attentions" to Ella Hefferan, as reported by the New York Dispatch.  The unwanted wooing finally prompted Ella to confess to her astonished father that she had secretly married Frank E. Nesmith.  "The bride's father when he first learned of the match, did feel somewhat put, out," said the newspaper on October 24, "that his daughter should step out beyond his control in a surreptitious manner, but he now seems perfectly satisfied."  As Nesmith was "a gentleman of the highest character and respectability" and Ella was "his equal in every respect," the journalist hoped they would have a happy life.  Nevertheless, he closed saying, "the least that they can do is get up a grand dejenuer to their friends and well wishers."

With the matrimonial cat out of the bag, the couple leased the new high-stooped brownstone at 116 East 61st Street from developers Peter V. Winters and William T. Hurt.  The 18-foot-wide Italianate style house was three stories tall above a rusticated English basement.  Triangular pediments sat above the parlor openings, while molded sills and prominent cornices adorned the architrave windows of the upper floors.  

The Nesmiths opened their home to callers on New Year's Day 1871.  The New York Dispatch said "continuous calls were received all day and evening," adding, "The parlors of the splendid brown stone house are gorgeously furnished in blue satin, and looked magnificent."

Within the month, Winters and Hunt sold the residence to Louisa and Simon Bing, Jr. for $20,500 (just over half a million in 2024 dollars).  Bing was a partner with Jacob August in the clothing firm of August, Bing & Co.  It appears the Bings continued to lease 116 East 61st Street to Frank and Ella Nesmith until they sold it in October 1872 to Sarah McIntyre for $21,250.

Living with Sarah was her daughter, also named Sarah, and son-in-law Scipio L. Leslie.  Scipio Leslie was the youngest son of Frank Leslie, publisher of the highly popular Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.  The couple's daughter, Lonetta Leslie, was born in 1875. 

Scipio became ill in 1878 and "after a lingering illness," according to The New York Times, died on May 23.  His funeral was held in the drawing room three days later.

Sarah McIntyre died in 1879, and the following year her estate leased 116 East 61st Street to a Mr. Hoffman.  In May he had a house guest from San Francisco, Albert J. Seligman.  Seligman, who was the son of New York banker Jesse Seligman, was stopping here on his way to Frieburg, Germany to take courses and had booked passage on a steamship leaving New York on May 29.  

Two days before the vessel was scheduled to leave, Seligman was nowhere to be found.  On May 28, the New York World reported that his friends had reported him missing, saying he "disappeared a few days ago."  The article noted, "As he was not in his right mind at times, his friends feared that he might have committed suicide."

Seligman's steamship sailed without him.  On June 1, The Sun reported, "Nothing has been heard of Albert Seligman of San Francisco, who disappeared from No. 116 East Sixty-first street, last Tuesday."  Happily, Seligman did turn up.  The following year, on October 21, 1881, The Helena Independent reported, "Albert J. Seligman, son of Jesse Seligman, the well-known New York banker, arrived from the east Tuesday evening.  Mr. Seligman has just completed a course of study at Freiburg, and come to Montana for the purpose of obtaining practical knowledge of mining."

At the end of Hoffman's lease, Sarah moved back into her mother's house.  In the meantime, she had married James G. Powers, Jr.  Lonetta, who was now 7 years old, had a half-sister.  Madelaine Powers was born in September 1881.  Tragically, little Madelaine died on May 11, 1882 at the age of 8 months.  The family's grief was reflected in the notation "funeral private" included in her death announcement.

Sarah Powers purchased her two sisters' portions of their mother's house for $10,000 on September 6, 1882.  The family remained here for nearly a decade, selling it to James M. Cahn and his wife, the former Minnie Harriman, around 1891.

Born in 1859, Cahn was a member of the apparel firm James Cahn Brothers, established by his father in 1850.  When the family moved into 116 East 61st Street, son David Burnett Cahn was attending the Columbia Law School (he received his degree in 1893).  Another son, Louis, was a director in the Jose Lovera Co.

Minnie Cahn died on February 7, 1898.  As was customary, her funeral was held in the residence three days later.

Sharing the house with the three Cahn men by 1916 was the family of Colonel James B. Curtis.  A partner in the law firm of Baldwin & Curtis, Curtis was a veteran of the Spanish American War.  He and his wife had two young adult sons--Brian C., who graduated from Harvard in 1915; and Charles C., who was currently enrolled in Harvard.

Brian C. Curtis began post-graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1915, but the war in Europe prompted him to take a leave of absence.  That year he enlisted in American Ambulance Service in France.  On May 20, 1917, The New York Herald reported, "His mother went to Paris to come home with him at the expiration of his first enlistment, but when the young man decided to serve a second period, she remained in France, taking up relief work with the Belgian refugees in Paris."

James M. Cahn died in the house on September 7, 1918 at the age of 59.  The Curtis family remained in the house, renting it from Cahn's estate.  On January 7, 1921, the New York Herald reported, "Charles C. Curtis, who was graduated in 1919 from Harvard, has just arrived at the home of his parents, Col. and Mrs. James B. Curtis...after a trip to South America to see his brother, Capt. Brian C. Curtis."

On April 25, 1922, James B. Curtis traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana on business.  The following night, he "died during his sleep...presumably of heart disease," according to The New York Times.

Within two years, 116 East 61st Street was being operated as unofficial apartments, and in 1929 it was converted to a two-family dwelling.  The stoop was removed at this time and the entrance lowered to the former English basement level.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

After mid-century, the first of a string of highly-visible interior decorators to occupy 116 East 61st Street moved in.  James Davison, known as Jimmy, lived in the lower portion here when he met British-born designer Nicholas Haslam.  David was, according to Vanity Fair in September 2009, "a Rockefeller on his mother's side and his father was the head of J. P. Morgan."  The upper portion, said the magazine, was occupied by "a young comic named Woody Allen."

Davison and Haslam became lovers and, according to Haslam's Redeeming Features: A Memoir, "Almost immediately Jimmy asked me to move in with him, which I did."

Decorator Billy Baldwin moved in around 1964.  He told The New York Times on September 27 that year, "When I first looked at the New York apartment...I was appalled by all the juts and jags and awkward beams."   Baldwin was a partner in the decorating firm Baldwin & Martin, Inc.  On February 26, 1965, The New York Times said he "has never in his life sought a client and exercised considerable selectivity among those who offer themselves to him.  He will not do just anybody--and nothing could make him more attractive to a certain type of client than that."

In 1970 Baldwin, whose clients included the likes of Cole Porter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Diana Vreeland--moved to Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Decorator and architect Geoffrey Bradfield of Bradfield & Tobin purchased 116 East 61st Street in 1978.  The New York Post called him a "superstar designer" who "has masterminded some of the city's choicest interiors."  The Real Deal would later note, "Bradfield, who was born in South Africa and became a leading interior designer to the global elite, used the townhouse both as his primary residence and his company headquarters."  

The house was the scene of Bradfield's glittering birthday celebration on September 20, 2007.  Attending that evening were well-known names like Mary McFadden, Monique van Vooren, and Carlos Souza.

photo by Ted Leather

Having occupied 116 East 61st Street for 35 years, in 2012 Bradford placed the house on the market.  He sold it three years later to Seema and Somesh Khanna for $9.9 million.  The couple initiated a renovation, completed in 2018, that returned it to a single-family home.   They placed it on the market in 2021 for just under $16.5 million.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for requesting this post

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