The Richmond - 153 East 88th Street

 

The extended Rhinelander family traced its American roots to Philip J. Rhinelander, who arrived in 1689.  William Rhinelander established a "summer seat" on the Upper East Side in 1798 and the family's holdings were augmented over the decades.  In the 1880s, individual family members began developing the properties they had inherited along East 88th and 89th Streets.  Laura V. Rhinelander owned the land at 153 East 88th Street as early as 1887.  Within three years she had replaced the stable on the site with a four-story flat building.

Called The Richmond, the Renaissance Revival structure was faced in sandy-colored brick.  The arched openings of the first floor contrasted with the flat-headed windows of the upper stories.  Brick piers at the top floor were capped with ornate terra cotta capitals.  A parapet sat atop the understated, dentiled cornice.  The heavy, ornamental railings guarded the short stoop were nearly outdone by the intricately scrolled fire escape railings.

Close inspection reveals the ornate ironwork that still survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

There were two apartments per floor, each with a bathroom and steam heat.  An advertisement in The Evening Post on April 30, 1892 read:

"The Richmond," 153 East 88th St.--Cosey unfurnished apartments to rent to small families of adults; good management; rents, $31 to $33; very genteel; only eight apartments in house.

The more expensive rent would translate to about $1,140 per month in 2024.  The management was intent that the Richmond remained respectable.  Three years after the above ad intimated that no children were allowed, another in The New York Times offered apartments, "to let to clerks, salesmen, bookkeepers and genteel families."

Stockbroker William Hubbard and his wife lived here in 1899 and took in a boarder, E. Fox Leonard.  Leonard did not come home on July 1 that year and the following day The New York Morning Telegraph reported, "The young man found in a Thirty-ninth street flat, stupid from the effects of opium, died at 1:30 o'clock last night at Roosevelt Hospital."  Leonard had gone to an opium den run by two women.  The article said, "In the flat where the young man was found was an elaborate layout such as is used by opium smokers."

The residents of The Richmond were comfortably middle-class and owning a motorcar--an expensive luxury at the turn of the century--was not out of the question.  But one resident may have been operating a scam of sorts.  On November 14, 1908, an advertisement in The New York Times read:

Because I am going abroad I must sell at once my two fine 3-0 H. P. Studebaker touring cars. These are great bargains and in splendid condition.  An excellent opportunity to get a high-grade car cheap.  For further particulars address V. A. Villard, 153 East 88th Street, city.

Why Villard would have two touring cars or how he could afford such an expense is suspect.

Laura Perring lived here at the time.  Her apartment doubled as her studio where she taught voice and piano.  An ad in January 1909 offered, "The art of ballad and song singing correctly taught.  Also piano.  Special attention given to beginners.  Church singers coached.  Accompanying."

John Downing lived here and was the building's janitor by 1911 when he got himself in serious trouble with Mrs. Kate Bedingfield, who lived on Lexington Avenue.  There was a fenced lot next to 153 East 88th Street.  On April 11, 1911, The Evening World suggested, "A vacant lot, surrounded by a high fence, holds out its allurements next to the flat house.  Small boys have made bold to climb the fence and play."  Downing, described by the newspaper as "six feet tall, forty-five years of age," seems to have appointed himself custodian of the lot, as well.

Downing had caught a group of boys, including Kate Bedingfield's 11-year-old son, George, clambering over the fence.  He struck George on the back and legs with a broomstick.  George ran home and told his mother, who had John Downing arrested for disorderly conduct.

Kate and George Bedingfield faced off with Downing in Magistrate Steinert's courtroom on April 10.  It did not go well for Downing.  Steinert said to him:

You are a brute.  A man like you and as old as you are ought to know better.  You ought to know that we have to put up with a good many things from these little fellows nowadays.  They have few places to play, and when they see a vacant lot they are going to take charge of it.

Downing was fined $300.  The Evening World reported, "And now the small boy population of the upper east side is ready to make Steinert President or let him carry the bats for the Giants."

A fascinating resident was archeologist Ambrose Lansing.  Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1891, his wife was the former Caroline Cox.  Although he was just 28 years old in 1919, Lansing had made an important mark in Egyptian archeology.  On August 14 that year, the New York Herald began an article saying, "Important additions to the treasures of Egyptian art in the Metropolitan Museum will be made as soon as the material excavated by Ambrose Lansing, of the Museum's archaeological staff, reaches this country from the banks of the Nile."  During his four-year expedition, Lansing had discovered the tomb of Pedu Bost, "ruler of Thebes, then the capital of Egypt, about 700 B. C.," as well as that of a high priest in Luxor.

Ambrose Lansing, original source unknown

Lansing, who arrived home on August 13, had packed up 30 cases of artifacts for shipment to the museum.  The New York Herald noted, "An interesting feature of the work done by Mr. Lansing at Thebes was the discovery of inscriptions showing definitely that the reigning queen of upper Egypt at the time was Amenirdis."

Equally interesting was Anna L. Fisher, who lived here in 1927. In 1918, she was sent by the Red Cross Commission to Palestine, and in 1920 worked with the American Red Cross in Damascus.  Because of her work there, "Mrs. Fisher was appointed a Captain in the Arabian Cavalry, and with her rank she received a beautiful Arabian mare, the personal gift of Emir Feisal," reported The New York Times. 

In 1922, Fisher took on a new role, becoming manager of the restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Now, in the fall of 1927, she was packing up her apartment in preparation for a move to the Middle East.  On November 27, The New York Times reported she, "has been appointed by the Iraq Government to be an attaché of the Ministry of Education in that country, and to engage in social work among the Arabs."

Fisher told a reporter from The Times, "I am very much attached to King Feisal.  He is a great man, exceptionally broadminded, and he has vision.  The Arabs are very fine people and I enjoy my work with them."

In June 1933, Philip Rhinelander sold 153 East 88th Street to Louise M. Clews.  A renovation completed in 1966 resulted in a doctor's office suite on the first floor.  It may have been at this time that the ornate Victorian fire escapes and stoop railings were replaced with less interesting examples.  There are still two apartments per floor above the first floor.

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J. M. Felson's 1937 161 East 88th Street

Although the country was mired in the Great Depression, architect J. M. Felson was busy designing apartment houses in New York City in the 1930s, sometimes acting as his own developer.  In 1936, he was hired by York Enterprises to design a six-story structure at 159 through 163 East 88th Street.  Completed the following year, the Art Deco, six-story building was faced in beige brick.  Unlike Felson's 1931 40 West 86th Street, which was decorated with brilliantly colored terra cotta panels, 16 East 88th Street depended almost entirely on brick.

Stone appeared only at the reeded entrance, which was capped by a waterfall-like panel.  Felson accentuated the verticality of the relatively short building by laying the bricks within the spandrels between floors on their ends.  The fire escapes were part of the design, their curved corners and chevron motifs melding with the Art Deco architecture.  Felson reserved the drama for the top floor, where Aztec inspired panels and a stair-stepping parapet stole the show.

There were seven apartments per floor, ranging from one-and-a-half to four rooms with either one or two baths.  A 1937 advertisement in The New York Sun boasted, "modern elevator apartments; dropped living rooms, dining alcoves, open galleries, concealed radiation, etc."  Rents started at $55--or about $1,140 by 2024 terms.

from Columbia University's Real Estate Brochure Collection

Among the initial residents was the George William Knight family.  Knight's father, Louis Aston Knight (who went professional by his middle name), was a recognized landscape artist.  When his parents and sister, Diane, returned to America on the Vulcania on November 26, 1937, they "went to the home of a son, George W. Knight, at 161 East Eighty-eighth street," reported The New York Sun.

Aston Knight had been busy abroad, completing about 20 paintings in Normandy.  He told the press, "I have no definite plans.  We shall spend the Christmas holidays in Rochester and go on a cruise at Eastertime, probably to the West Indies, but just where will depend on the sailings."

The Knights apparently approved of their son's apartment, and within a year they, too, had moved in.  Born in Paris in 1873, Aston Knight first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1894.  In 1922, President Warren G. Harding purchased his The Afterglow for the White House.

Knight's wife was the former Caroline Ridgeway Brewster.  In addition to George and Diane, they had a son, Ridgway Brewster.  (Ridgway would go on to become American ambassador to Syria, Belgium and Portugal.)  

Along the Seine is typical of Aston Knight's work.

The Knights were visible in Manhattan society.  On February 20, 1939, for instance, The New York Sun published a photo of Diane in an evening gown and George in white tie at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, "where they were members of a dinner party."  Interestingly, when Diane married James R. Todd in the Church of the Transfiguration on June 25, 1940, The New York Sun noted, "A small reception will follow at the home of the bride's brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Knight, 161 East Eighty-eighth street," rather than her parents' apartment.

Living here in 1941 was Yolanda De Clifford, described by the New York Evening Telegram as, "a rather plump brunette...who says she is a singer, a linguist and a playwrighting collaborator."  Sharing her apartment was her Irish Setter, Erin's Pride, which she fondly called Tinko.

Yolanda De Clifford, The New York Sun, May 29, 1942

One afternoon while De Clifford was walking Tinko, he "rushed upon the tiny dog being walked by [Irving] Halpern and bowled it over," reported The New York Sun.  De Clifford explained to Halpern, who "seemed somewhat disturbed," that Tinko was "just being playful."

Halpern soon got over the incident and turned his attention to Tinko.  De Clifford said her dog was worth $750 (a considerable $14,000 today), and Halpern asked "if he might take the dog out walking sometime."  Yolanda De Clifford did some research and discovered that Halpern routinely walked other people's dogs.

When she fell ill on December 28, 1941, she remembered Halpern's offer and called him.  Immediately, both Halpern and Tinko disappeared.  Five months later, on May 29, 1942, The New York Sun reported, "If Irving Halpern weren't so fond of taking other people's dogs for walks he wouldn't be in jail trying to raise $500 bail."  

Halpern had finally been tracked down and brought to court.  "Tinko, he said, is somewhere on Long Island," reported The New York Sun, which added, "He has a record of twelve previous arrests, the police say, including a sentence in 1936 for three years in the Federal Penitentiary and a $500 fine for passing counterfeit money."  Whether Yvonne De Clifford was ever reunited with her pricey Irish Setter is unclear.

At the time, resident Edward F. Morrisey was serving in World War I aboard a Superfortress B-29 bomber.  On March 26, 1945, The New York Sun reported that Sergeant Morrisey had been awarded "the Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster to the Air Medal for outstanding and meritorious achievement on flights from India and Western China."

Educator Dr. George Kurke and his wife, the former Miriam Morris, lived at 161 East 88th Street during the war years.  Born in 1890, Kurke graduated from City College in 1910 and earned his law degree from New York Law School.  He received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1938.  The principal of Robert E. Simon Junior High School, he was also the editor of the Roosevelt Quarterly and associate editor of the Roosevelt House Review.  Nationally recognized for his innovations in education, he revised a series of arithmetic books for the American Book Company, was instrumental in developing a teacher's handbook and new type of report card, along with other public school improvements.  He received the Roosevelt Medallion for "distinguished service rendered in connection with Americanization work," according to The New York Times. 

Little has changed to the exterior of 161 East 88th Street.  Its Art Deco façade is an integral thread in the diverse architectural tapestry that makes up this Upper East Side block.

photographs by the author

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The Rev. George Wm. Douglas Mansion - 5 East 88th Street

 

On December 20, 1902, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that George C. Edgar's Sons had sold the 27-foot-wide house at 5 East 88th Street to Edward McVickar.  It was one of a trio of sumptuous Beaux Arts homes designed by Turner & Kilian.  While each was individual, they formed a unified composition.  The house just sold was mere steps from Fifth Avenue.  Five stories tall, its Doric marble portico supported a balustraded balcony at the second floor.  The limestone-faced base upheld four floors of deep red brick trimmed in limestone and marble.  A three-story bowed midsection provided an iron-railed balcony at the fifth floor.  A dignified stone balustrade crowned the design.

The house was sold twice before Rev. George William Douglas purchased it in 1909.  Born on July 8, 1850, Douglas traced his American ancestry to Deacon William Douglas and his wife Ann Mattle, who arrived in New England in 1640.  Highly educated, after graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Douglas studied at Trinity College, Hobart College, the University of the South, the General Theological Seminary, Oxford, and the University of Bonn.  

On September 3, 1884, he married Cornelia De Koven Dickey, who also had Colonial roots.  The couple maintained summer homes in Tuxedo, New York and Jekyll Island, Georgia.  

Five years before moving into the East 88th Street house, Douglas became Senior Canon Residentiary of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  He did not accept a salary, The New York Herald explaining, "he is well to do in his own right, and Mrs. Douglas is wealthy."  His memberships in the exclusive Century, University, Union League, Grolier, and Tuxedo Clubs reflected his financial and social status.

On the literary side, Rev. Douglas had been associate editor of Youth's Companion since 1902.  In 1907, he published The Many Sided Roosevelt, and in 1912 wrote Essays in Appreciation.  He was also the author of Hints to Sunday School Teachers and Prayers for Children.

On May 1, 1914, the New York Herald reported, "The Rev. Dr. George William Douglas, noted clergyman and author, has severed his connection with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he has been a canon since 1904...He has not officiated at a service at the cathedral for weeks and he never will again in an official capacity."

A journalist visited the East 88th Street house hoping for an explanation.  Douglas told him, "I have greatly enjoyed the work.  My work is now ended, and I am leaving the city for Europe next week to be gone until autumn."  Bishop David H. Greer was equally vague.  "There are no canons now.  Their terms have expired and no one has been re-elected.  Those who retain the title do so through courtesy."

The Douglases sold 5 East 88th Street in September 1925.  In the 1930s it was home to Arthur Hays Sulzberger and his wife, the former Iphigene Bertha Ochs.  Iphigene's father, Adolph Ochs, was the publisher of The New York Times.  A year after the couple married in 1917, Sulzberger began working at the newspaper.  By the time they moved into 5 East 88th Street, the couple's four children were young adults.

Arthur Hays Sulzberger from the collection of Columbia University

Adolph Ochs died in 1935.  Iphigene was made a trustee of The New York Times.  But, according to Susan E. Tifft in her 2000 The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times, she was deemed ineligible to inherit the newspaper because of her gender.  The following year her husband was elected publisher.

Iphigene Ochs, Barnard College Mortarboard 1914 (copyright expired)

Iphigene's substantial personal fortune was increased in 1937, following the death of her mother, Effie Wise Ochs, on May 6.  Seven days later, the Daily News of Tarrytown, New York reported, "Mrs. Sulzberger, wife of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who inherited Mr. Ochs' interest in The New York Times, is the principal beneficiary, receiving the entire residuary estate." 

The Sulzbergers left sometime after 1940.  In 1944, the first and second floors of the mansion were converted to a school, while the upper floors continued to house a single family.  Just four years later, another renovation resulted in a doctor's office on the ground floor and upscale, cooperative apartments on the upper floors.

Living here in 1965 was stockbroker Joseph S. Clark, Jr. and his wife Felicia.  Clark was the son of Pennsylvania Senator Joseph Sill Clark.  He and Felicia started an unusual side business following a trip to Wyoming in July 1964--selling fish fossils.  "The fossils are op art," he told a reporter.  The Battle Creek [Michigan] Enquirer and News reported on August 2, 1965, "Clark sells the fossils from his apartment.  His wife, Felecia, handles the business end of the partnership."

A colorful resident was Kirk Lemoyne Billings.  Born in Pittsburgh in 1916, he was the roommate of John Fitzgerald Kennedy at Choate Rosemary Hall and then at Princeton before Kennedy transferred to Harvard.  The two men would remain best friends for life.  Known as Lem to the Kennedys, The New York Times said, "Although Mr. Billings never served the President in an official capacity, he was a frequent guest at the White House."  The newspaper noted that he "was active in all of John Kennedy's campaigns as well as those of Senator Robert F. Kennedy."

Billings in his apartment at 5 East 88th Street.  original source unknown

Following Kennedy's assassination, Billings became close friends with Robert Kennedy, Jr.  David Michaelis, in his article "The President's Best Friend" in American Heritage in 1983, said, 

A visit to 5 East Eighty-eighth Street was itself like touring a museum.  Every room was crammed full of carefully preserved treasures, overlapping collections of art and antiquities and early American furniture and personal mementos--all reminders that men in history had actually been alive.

Kirk LeMoyne Billings died in his apartment on May 28, 1981 at the age of 65.  The New York Times reported, "Senator Edward M. Kennedy will speak at a memorial service tomorrow morning at 10 A.M. at the Church of the Heavenly Rest."  

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife, Emily Ruth Black, moved into Billings's apartment.   The following year, on Thanksgiving night, Emilie was walking home at 11 p.m. when she was mugged by three teenagers on Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets.  The teens stole her purse and ran, pursued by Emilie Kennedy.  A cab driver joined in the chase and all three were caught (Emilie later revealed that she personally had captured one of them) and held until police arrived.

Emilie, who was a criminal defense lawyer, worked for the Legal Aid Society.  Newsday reported, "when Mrs. Kennedy's purse was recovered and returned to her, she told police she did not want to press charges and left."  The article said she refused "despite police appeals."  Two days later, however, she relented and pressed charges against the boys--two 15-year-olds and one 14-year-old.

A renovation completed in 2012 did away with the doctor's office.  There are now seven apartments--one on the first floor, two each on the second and third, one on the fourth floor, and a duplex on the fifth floor and new penthouse level, unseen from the street.

photographs by the author

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The 1902 James C. Carter Mansion - 7 East 88th Street

 

The high-stooped brownstone at 7 East 88th Street was occupied by the New York Magdalen Benevolent Home in February 1888 when it was visited by journalist Nellie Bly.  Her article in The World described it as, "an institution for unfortunate women," whom she called the victims of "the toboggan slide of sin."  At the time, the mansions of Manhattan's millionaires lined Fifth Avenue below 59th Street.

By the turn of the century, however, the northward migration of millionaires had reached 88th Street.  In 1901, developers George C. Edgar's Sons purchased the properties at 5 through 9 East 88th Street from Francis K. Pendleton and began construction of three lavish mansions on the site.  Designed by Turner & Kilian, their dignified Beaux Arts facades expressed wealth and breeding.  

Unlike its neighbors, the upper floors of which were faced in deep red brick, the center mansion was fully clad in limestone.  The paneled piers that flanked the entrance upheld a two-story oriel that provided a balustraded balcony to the fourth floor.  And while the top floors of its fraternal siblings on either side rose vertically to stone balustrades, the fifth floor of 7 East 88th Street was a slate shingled mansard, pierced by French style stone dormers.

On December 27, 1902, the Record & Guide reported, "George C. Edgar's Sons have sold No. 7 East 88th Street...This sale disposes of three houses erected by the sellers in 1901."  But then something went awry.  A week later the journal reported that the house had, in fact, not been sold.

It would not be until May 15, 1904 that the New York Herald reported, "James C. Carter, well known as a lawyer, has bought a new home for himself at No. 7 East Eighty-eighth street.  It is a handsome five story American basement brown stone [sic] structure and was only recently completed."  The Real Estate Record & Guide reported the selling price to be $140,000--about $4.9 million in 2024.

Society portraitist John Singer Sargent captured Carter on canvas in 1899.  from the collection of the Harvard Club of New York City.

James Coolidge Carter was, indeed, "well known as a lawyer."  Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts on October 14, 1827, he graduated from Harvard College in 1850 and from Harvard Law School in 1853.  The New York Times said, "He at once established himself in the practice of his profession, and soon won a place among the foremost lawyers in New York."

Carter's brilliant legal mind prompted President Benjamin Harrison to appoint him one of three counsels to "present the claims of the United States before the Bering Sea tribunal, which met in Paris in February, 1893," according to The New York Times.  When he purchased the 88th Street mansion, Carter was a member of the law firm Carter & Ledyard.

Never married, the eminent attorney lived here alone with his domestic staff.  But he would not enjoy the sumptuous home for long.  Nine months after moving in, he fell ill.  He died on February 14, 1905 at the age of 77.  The New York Times commented, "Although he had been ill only a few days, his advanced age balked the efforts of his physicians, who found that he had overtaxed his constitution by excessive devotion to his profession."

On February 17, a procession of distinguished jurists accompanied the casket from 7 East 88th Street to All Soul's Church on Fourth Avenue and 20th Street.  A second funeral was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts prior to his burial.

Carter's estate sold the house in December that year to banker Edward Charles Schaefer, president of the Germania Bank.  Born on December 16, 1850, he was the son of Frederick and Theresa Schaefer.  His father was one of the two brothers who founded the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company.  Edward Schaefer had been the president of that firm since 1884, as well, and was a managing director of the Schaefer Company, a realty firm.

On April 20, 1904, a year before purchasing 7 East 88th Street, Schaefer had married Emily Winifred Haag, a widow.  Living with them was Emily's daughter, Josephine Haag Toerge, and her two children from a previous marriage.

Like their neighbors, the Schaefers appeared regularly in the society columns.  On May 20, 1910, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Schaefer of 7 East Eighty-eighth Street are leaving on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria to-morrow for Kissingen, and later will make an automobile trip through Germany and France."

Two days before Christmas in 1917, the New-York Tribune reported, 'Edward C. Schaefer, president of the Germania Bank on the Bowery, has made his wife a present of their $200,000 home at 7 East Eighty-eighth Street as a Christmas gift."

Schaefer retired in 1918, the fiftieth anniversary of his employment with the bank.  American Biography later said, "But while the directors accepted the resignation of their president they would not allow him to retire from all connection with the institution he had served so long and so well, and at once elected him chairman of the board of directors."

The mansion was the scene of a society wedding on February 24, 1921.  Emily's niece, Gertrude W. Jetter, was married to Talman Bigelow that afternoon.  The ceremony was covered in society pages in newspapers as far away as Washington D.C.

Ten months later, on December 19, Edward Charles Schaefer died in the 88th Street mansion at the age of 71.

There would be a second wedding at 7 East 88th Street.  On January 9, 1925, The New York Times reported, "announcement was made yesterday of the marriage of Mrs. Josephine H. Toerge to Major Gen. I. Thord-Gray at the home of her mother, Mrs. Edward Charles Schaefer, of 7 East Eighty-eighth Street, on Wednesday.  The article noted, "General and Mrs. Thord-Gray have left on a wedding trip, and when they return early in February they plan to make their home at 7 East Eighty-eighth Street."

Josephine's husband, Ivor Thord-Gray, was a fascinating figure.  Born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1878, he had served in 13 wars on different continents between 1897 and 1919.  In addition to his distinguished military career, he was an ethnologist, a linguist, and adventurer.  In 1923 he wrote On the Antiquity of Mexico: Among the Ruins of Temples and Idols.  He moved to New York City in 1925 and founded the investment banking firm I. T. Gray & Co.

Major General Ivor Thord-Gray (original source unknown)

Josephine was not his first wife.  He had married Edith Kemper-Voss in 1904.  Before their divorce in 1908, a son was born.  Thord-Gray then lived with Isabel Barr from 1917 to 1921, fathering another son; and was briefly married to Belle Scott in 1922.

The Thord-Grays' summer home was Gray Court in Greenwich, Connecticut.  The Georgian Revival mansion had 38 rooms.

Gray Court.  image via ctgenweb.org

On November 12, 1925, the New York Evening Post reported, "Major General and Mrs. Ivor Thord Gray of 7 East Eighty-eighth Street, gave a dinner at the Plaza last night for twelve guests to celebrate General Gray's birthday."  

Perhaps not surprisingly, Josephine would not be Thord-Gray's last wife.  The couple was divorced in 1932 and he married Winnifred Ingersoll the following year.

Six years before her divorce, on April 15, 1926, the New York Sun had reported that Josephine had sold 7 East 88th Street "to a physician who will occupy it."  Dr. Orrin Sage Wightman was born in New York City in 1873 and married Purl Parker in 1905.  The couple had two children, Julia Parker and Orrin Jr.

The president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, Wightman was also editor in chief of the New York State Journal of Medicine and chairman of the New York State Medical Grievance Committee.  His hobby was photography, and he carefully documented his extensive travels on film.  It had begun with an 1895 bicycle trip through France and Spain, and continued with his Red Cross missions to Russia and the Far East during World War I and the Russian Revolution.  His vast photographic array also included Central Park and other Manhattan scenes.

Interestingly, on May 12, 1930, the New York Sun reported that the Wightmans had sold the 88th Street mansion to the H. T. M. Realty Corporation.  The following day, the New York Evening Post announced that Wightman "has taken a lease of the premises from the new owners for fifteen years."

The Wightmans remained here, now leasing the home they had owned, into the 1940s.  They would be the last occupants of 7 East 88th Street as a single-family home.  In 1948, it was converted to apartments, two on the first floor, one on the second, and two each on the upper floors.  Two years later a "doctor apartment" was installed on the ground floor.

photographs by the author

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William M. Dowling's 1937 19 East 88th Street

 

In 1935, William M. Dowling designed a 15-story-and-penthouse apartment building for Nathaniel Wallenstein on the northeast corner of 88th Street and Madison Avenue.  His bold, late Art Deco design included triple-height fluted pilasters on either side of the entrance that terminated in stylized scallop designs.  The address was announced in jazzy Art Deco figures within the spandrel between the second and third floors, directly above the doorway.  By contrasting light and dark brick, Dowling created vertical central sections on both elevations.  

The street address, in a jazzy Art Deco font, is integrated into the spandrel above the second floor.

Architects had been wrapping casement windows around the corners of buildings for several years.  But Dowling took his design a step further by chamfering them within the sharply angled corners.  The streamlined terrace and balcony railings have been compared by architectural historians to ocean liner designs.

No. 19 East 88th Street was completed in 1937.  An advertisement called it "this ultra-modern new building" and a "town residence for a selected tenancy."  The apartments, ranging from three to five rooms, were described as, "individually planned--No two alike!"  An ad touted, 

Most modern appointments.  All electric kitchens! Dropped living rooms; spacious foyers' dressing rooms with triple mirrors; glass-enclosed showers; recessed radiation.  Central Park--in all its beauty--just beyond your w-i-d-e casement corner windows.

Among the initial residents was investment adviser Russell Field Prudden.  Born in Lockport, New York in 1894, he had been senior bank examiner of the State Banking Department from 1930 to 1933.  Prudden was the founder and publisher of Prudden's Digest of Investment and Banking Opinions and the author of The Bank Credit Investigator.  

The New York Times described Prudden as being "active socially here and in Palm Beach, Fla., and Southampton, L.I.,"  where he maintained homes.  His entertaining in town was typified in The New York Times reporting on December 3, 1937, "Russell F. Prudden of 19 East Eighty-eighth Street entertained with a dinner last night at his home for Mr. and Mrs. Knox B. Phagan of Bronxville, later taking his guests to a theatrical performance."  

Another early resident was Allen Boretz, who signed a lease in December 1937.  The songwriter and playwright had scored a Broadway hit seven months earlier when Room Service (co-written with John Murray) opened at the Cort Theatre.  It would run for 500 performances, closing on July 16, 1938.

The Federal Theatre Project produced Room Service in San Francisco in 1938.

In 1939, his play Off to Buffalo opened, while Room Service resulted in offers from Hollywood.  Boretz would write or co-write screenplays into the 1940s.  Among his credits were the 1943 It Ain't Hay and the 1946 Ziegfield Follies.

Typical of the early tenants were Bert Kulick, vice president of the Syndicate Exchanges, Inc., proprietors of motion picture theaters; Daniel I. Crowley, president of the Crowley Tar Products Company of New York and Chicago; and Hugo F. Jaburg, president of R. C. Williams & Jaburg Bros., a food products firm.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Dr. N. Philip Norman and his wife lived here by 1944.  The Consultant Nutritionist for the New York City Department of Heath and Hospitals, he was described by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., president of the American Academy of Applied Nutrition in 1947 as "one of the well known nutritionists in the east, and...the author of many excellent articles and books along these lines."  Recognized as a pioneer nutritionist, in 1948 he co-authored Tomorrow's Food with James Rorty.

Norman's leisure time was devoted to an expertise far afield of his professional bailiwick.  In 1944, the New York Sun described him as "for many years a maker of river steamboat models."  His hobby made him a leading authority on steamboats and their architecture and history.

Architect Daniel Paul Higgins and his wife Anna lived here by 1944.  A partner in Eggers & Higgins, The New York Times said he was...

prominently or exclusively responsible for a long list of architectural successes, including Constitution Hall for the Daughters of the American Revolution, the National Gallery of Art, the American Red Cross Building and the great-columned Pantheonistic Jefferson Memorials--all in Washington; interior designs for the S. S. America and four Grace Line ships and innumerable libraries and office buildings (example--the Aetna Life Insurance Company headquarters in New York and the Senate Office Building in Washington).

The Higgins's apartment was furnished with 18th and early 19th century American furniture.  images from the collection of the Library of Congress.

In addition to his busy architectural career, Higgins was a member of the Board of Education and "served on the board of so many youth movements that he could not remember all the names," according to The New York Times.  Among them were the Boys Clubs of America, the Police Athletic League, the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Youth Organization.

from the collection of the Library of Congress

Daniel and Anna Higgins had two adult children.  They maintained a country home in Carmel, New York, and a Colonial period house in Truro, Massachusetts.

The Higgins's country house in Massachusetts.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

On December 18, 1953, the Kingston, New York newspaper The Daily Freeman reported, "Daniel P. Higgins, 67, widely known architect...is seriously ill in New York Hospital."  He died the following week, on December 26.  His lengthy obituary in The New York Times mentioned, "he left the ranks of fledgling draftsmen to create his own blueprints and culminate his career as partner in one of the country's foremost architectural firms, Eggers & Higgins."

Influential in his own sphere was Russian immigrant Jacob Potofsky, who lived here with his wife Blanche Lydia Zetland by the 1960s.   The couple was married in 1951.  (Potofsky's first wife, Callie Taylor, had died five years earlier.)

Potofsky started his career at the age of 14 as a "floor boy" in a Hart, Schaffner & Marx garment factory.  He rose through the ranks of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America until, in 1946, he became its president.  The New York Times would call him "a man renowned for his skills as a conciliator within the union movement."  Potofsky died at the age of 84 on August 5, 1979.

A maid in a duplex apartment was the victim of a terrifying incident on May 14, 2004.  After hearing a noise in the upstairs bedroom, The New York Times reported she "encountered the burglar, who...said he would not hurt her.  The burglar restrained her and robbed the apartment of jewelry and other items."  

In an article in The New York Times on March 12, 2006, Christopher Gray mentioned, "most of the casement windows are intact.  Julian Berkeley, the managing agent, said that although the co-op has suggested replacements, 'people just love those windows' and most have kept them."  The old casements have since been replaced with windows that admirably attempt to reflect William M. Dowling's 1936 design.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

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Harry Hurwit's 1927 Re-Do of 1080 Park Avenue

 

In 1887, bricklayer John P. Thorton erected eight brick-faced flats, or apartment houses, on the west side of Fourth Avenue (renamed Park Avenue a year later) between 88th and 89th Streets.  Designed by Frederick T. Camp, they were intended for middle-class residents, predating the thoroughfare's exclusivity by about a decade. 

 
Although it took the address of 1080 Park Avenue, the entrance to the corner building was on 88th Street, allowing Herman Goossen to open his saloon in the Park Avenue end in 1889.  When Prohibition arrived, the saloon made way for the Paramount Market.

A significant change had come to Park Avenue by then.  Mansions equal to those along Fifth Avenue lined the blocks and vintage buildings like 1080 Park Avenue were quickly disappearing.  On November 13, 1925, the New York Sun reported that that a syndicate had been formed "to improve the northwest corner of Park avenue and Eighty-eighth street with a fifteen story duplex apartment house."  The operators had leased the building in July "for sixty-three years, with an option to purchase it."

The developers quickly hit a snag, however.  The building's owner, Simon Ginsberg, had purchased 1080 Park Avenue in 1922 and had owned 1082 Park Avenue since 1905, operating his upholstery business there.  He had already refused to sell his properties to another set of developers who erected the large L-shaped apartment building around them in 1925.  And he was unwilling to have another apartment on the corner.

In 1925, Ginsberg gave 1082 a remarkable make-over designed by Augustus N. Allen.  Two years later he turned his attentions to the corner building.  

Architect Harry Hurwit remodeled 1080 Park Avenue with a Mediterranean inspired, stuccoed facade.  The entrance was given a segmentally arched entrance, flanked by paired, engaged columns with graceful cinched waists.  Directly above the entrance was a pseudo balcony fronting two windows framed by paneled pilasters and capped by swans head pediments.

The romantic motif continued at the fourth floor, where windows with balconettes were framed by engaged columns (similar to those of the entrance) under round arches.  An arcade of shop windows graced the Park Avenue ground level, while a roof of Spanish tiles crowned the design.

Ginsberg had successfully transformed his two 1887 buildings into modern fantasies.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Park Avenue commercial space was leased to David Bogen for his Boghen Pharmacy (the difference in spelling had to do with a licensing technicality), while the apartments became home to respectable, well-heeled tenants.  

Among the earliest was Marie Estill, who got unwanted and embarrassing publicity in 1929 when Betty Marvin sued her husband, Lewis B. Marvin, Jr., for divorce.  The Marvins maintained a country home in Port Washington, Long Island where, according to the Newburgh News, Lewis was a "prominent yachtsman."  In court on January 22, Betty said her husband "owns a sloop and a sporty roadster."

The divorce stemmed from a raid Betty had led on the summer home five months earlier, on August 1, 1928.  She took a friend, Florence Lawson, and a private investigator, Chester B. Evans along.  The Long Island Daily Press explained, "none was prepared for the sight that met their eyes.  As they stepped into the hall Mrs. Marie Estill of 1080 Park avenue, Manhattan, walked across the landing at the head of the broad staircase.  She was completely unclad."

Evans testified that Marie "screamed and dashed into another room."  The raiding party rushed up the stairs and into the bedroom where, "they found Marvin, considerably embarrassed as he reached frantically for articles of clothing."

In the meantime, residents paid $2,300 per year for four-room apartments (about $3,400 a month in 2024 terms).  Unlike Marie Estill, their names most often appeared in newspapers for social reasons.

On October 12, 1933, for instance, The New York Sun reported, "Mrs. Helen Virginia Meyer gave a tea yesterday on the roof-garden of her penthouse apartment at 1080 Park avenue in honor of Mrs. John P. O'Brien, wife of Mayor O'Brien."  Helping to host was Mrs. Howard Chandler Christy.

Helen was a "onetime show girl and silent-movie bit player," according to The Saturday Evening Post later, but was best known for her extensive collection of period gowns and costumes.  She was described in the 1937 book Fabrics as the "well known costume historian, and designer of the 'Famous Brides' and 'Famous Queens' series."  

In reporting on the upcoming Society Circus Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria on May 2, 1934, The New York Sun commented that Helen Virginia Meyers was on the costume committee.  "Miss Meyers, who is at 1080 Park avenue, as well as the Brooks Costume Company, have all manner of original and colorful costumes available for the ball, and will donate part of the proceeds on the rental and sale of the costumes to the charity for which the ball is being held."

Resident Fredericka Ludlum had experienced an unsettling incident earlier that year.  She had a house guest in January, Julia Wright.  The 80-year-old was, according to the North Shore Daily Journal, "a member of one of the oldest families of Long Island."  The article said, "The Wright family from which she was descended, settled the village [of Oyster Bay] 250 years ago, having bought their land from the Indians."  

On the evening of January 17, 1934, Julia Wright said good night.  The next morning, Fredericka Ludlum attempted to wake her houseguest, whom she discovered had died in her sleep.

In 1936, William F. Cutler was among the founders of "the newly formed professional football team, to be known as the New York Yankees," as reported by the New York Post on September 22.  The newspaper said, "The first match is scheduled for Sunday at the new stadium on Randall's Island...Following Sunday's game the team and their backers will drive to Manhattan, where Mr. William F. Cutler, one of the directors, and his pretty wife will play hosts to them at a cocktail party at their apartment at 1080 Park avenue."

A renovation completed in 1959 resulted in two apartments per floor.  The ground floor pharmacy was still operating as late as 2002, replaced by an Ottomanelli grocery store by 2011.  Today a deli occupies the space.

Harry Hurwit's graceful storefront has been brutally remodeled and the roof tiles replaced with shingles.  Nevertheless, his romantic remake survives, overall, intact.

photographs by the author

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