The Van Buren Ryerson House -- 129 East 94th Street

 

In 1878 developers Duffy & Bros. tackled the problem of developing Goat Hill--presumably named because its steep slope had made it unworkable for planting, but quite satisfactory for grazing goats.  That year they hired architect F. S. Barus to design nine rowhouses--121 through 137 East 94th Street--between Park and Lexington Avenues.  The 16-and-one-half-feet wide homes were completed in 1879.

Among the group was 129 East 94th Street.  Faced in brownstone, it rose three stories above a high English basement.  Beefy cast iron newels and railings flanked the stoop, and austere stone architraves embraced the openings.  Their sills and molded cornices sat on scrolled brackets.

It became home to engineer and inventor Van Buren Ryerson.  Born in 1805, he was renowned for his inventions, like his 1869 Ryerson Pulverizer used by miners to pulverize dry ores.  But none was more celebrated than his 1858 Sub Marine Explorer, a pioneering diving bell.  Ryerson's residency would be short-lived.  He died in the house on November 16, 1880 at the age of 75.  

Frank R. Houghton purchased the house.  A real estate broker, he was treasurer of the Real Estate Board of Brokers.  Houghton offered 129 East 94th Street for sale in March 1890 for $16,000, guaranteeing its "value [will] surely increase."  

Andrew Fay purchased the house in September 1892 after, apparently, negotiating the price.  He paid $15,500, or about $551,000 in 2026.

An attorney, Fay was an assistant clerk in the District Attorney's office.  He and his wife, Maria, had five children, Elizabeth A., Edward J., Eugene, Loretta, and William A.

The Fay family led quiet lives, never appearing in the society pages.  Other than legal business matters, Andrew Fay's name did not appear in print until his passing here on October 24, 1906.  And even then, his death notice was a succinct, one-sentence announcement.  His funeral was held in the drawing room two days later.

Interestingly, Fay bequeathed the house in equal portions to his children.  Maria was not included in the title.

At the time of their father's death, at least Eugene, Loretta and Elizabeth were still living with Maria.  Eugene was highly involved in civic affairs and on January 24, 1906 was appointed a member of the Local School Board of the 16th District.  

On January 21, 1909, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. John J. Daniels and Miss Elizabeth M. Fay were married yesterday in the Church of St. Francis de Sales."  Loretta was her sister's maid of honor.  The article noted, "A wedding breakfast was served at the home of the bride's mother, Mrs. Andrew Fay, at No. 129 East Ninety-fourth street."

Maria Fay died on August 16, 1912.  Her funeral was held in the drawing room on the 20th, followed by a mass at the Church of St. Francis de Sales.

In 1941, the muscular stoop ironwork was intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house saw several occupants over the subsequent years.  It was lost in foreclosure in the World War II years.  On August 5, 1943, The New York Times reported, "Paul G. Reilly of the law firm of Earle, Rust & Reilly has bought for his own occupancy, the three-story brownstone dwelling."  

Reilly and his wife, Lillian, made substantial changes before moving in.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered below grade.  The 1879 details of the parlor floor openings were shaved off.  (Oddly enough, the upper floor windows were left intact.)  A second renovation remodeled the interiors  in 1948.  During one of the projects, the brownstone was stuccoed.

image via Google Streetview

Paul and Lillian had three sons, Willis, Gorman, and Paul Jr., and a daughter, Jane.  Reilly had been a member of Reilly, Fleming & Reilly since the 1930s.  In 1948, he represented the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy for reimbursement for 22 million acres of upstate New York land.  He would work on the case for four decades, amassing a library of photocopies of treaties between Native American nations and the U.S. Government, maps, chapters from history books, and other materials.

In 1954, Reilly unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives.  The couple was in San Pedro Cantira, Spain on April 26, 1979 when Reilly died at the age of 70.  His casework materials, called The Paul G. Reilly Indian Collection, was donated to the E. H. Butler Library of The State University of New York.

In 2014, a restoration was initiated by William Vitacco Associates, Ltd.  The stoop was restored, the stucco removed, and the window details refabricated.  Still a single-family home, it has been sympathetically returned to its 1879 appearance.

photographs by the author

The Erica Jong House - 125 East 94th Street

 

In 1878-79, real estate developers Duffy & Bros. erected a row of nine, 17-feet-wide rowhouses along the north side of East 94th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues.  Designed by F. S. Barus, the identical brownstone-fronted homes were three stories tall above high English basements.  Barus's neo-Grec design placed the openings into architraves embellished with scrolled brackets and molded cornices.  Each house terminated with its own pressed metal cornice.

The original residents of 125 East 94th Street were Philip and Annie Smith, whose residency would be short and disturbing.  Philip, it seems, had a drinking problem and when intoxicated became abusive.  A maid, Louise Hughes, testified several years later that on March 25, 1880 Philip was drunk and struck Annie "with his fist around the head."  She said he was "in a great rage and used violent and abusive language."  That night, said Louise, Annie "ran away from the house to get out of his way."  She also testified that Philip would tell his wife, "I will knock your teeth out," and, "I will throw you out of the window."

The Smiths left 125 East 94th Street on May 1, 1881.  The house was leased by Laura M. Boehmann to several affluent tenants over the ensuing years.  Living here in the pre-World War I years was the Kroger family, who announced the engagement of daughter Matilda to Henry C. Reife in April 1916.

Laura Boehmann sold 125 East 94th Street in April 1917 to W. S. Groesbeck Fowler.  He, too, used the property for rental income.  In 1919, he leased it to Colonel Latham Gallup Reed and his wife, the former Mary Newbold Welsh. 

Latham Reed was born in Albany, New York in 1856.  His deep American ancestry included "early residents of the Plymouth Colony," according to The New York Times, and "officers of the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars."  Reed studied at Columbia University, and at Cambridge University in England where he earned his law degree.  Formerly a partner in the law firm of Bowers & Sands, he retired in 1914.

Fowler sold 125 East 94th Street in May 1921.  The New York Herald remarked, "The new owner will alter and occupy."  The house continued to see a relatively quick turnover of residents.  

Amelia Caroline Taylor Mason was the widow of Reverend Arthur Mason.  Born in 1837 in Cuba, she and her husband, who died in 1907, had two children.  Amelia died in the house on January 11, 1924 and her funeral was held in St. Bartholomew's Church.

Dr. Robert Ogden DuBois quickly moved into 125 East 94th Street.  The 30-year-old bachelor had graduated from Columbia University in 1915 and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1919.  An assistant at the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital, he would not be alone here for long.  On March 9, 1925, The New York Times reported that he was engaged to Elizabeth Harsen Chisolm.   The newspaper mentioned that the bride-to-be "is well known in New York society."

Like Latham Gallup Reed, DuBois had a sterling American pedigree.  He traced his ancestry to Robert Livingston the Elder, who arrived in Albany in 1674 and established Livingston Manor along the Hudson River in 1715.  The couple would have two sons, Robert Jr., born in 1926, and Philip Mason, born in 1932.

In August 1933, Betty Menzel was hired here as a servant.  The 24-year-old had previously worked in the home of Benjamin Friedman in Laurelton, Long Island.  Only days after she moved in, Friedman rang the door.  The Long Island Daily Press reported "on June 28 he missed a gold ring set with a sapphire worth $50, two fountain pens valued at $20, and a cigarette lighter valued at $8."  When Betty quit on August 12, Friedman's suspicions "turned to her."

Faced with her former employer, Betty Menzel crumpled.  The article said, "she returned the pens and lighter, and gave him a pawn ticket for the ring."  That was not enough for Friedman, and Betty was arrested.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house was next owned by Julia Smith, the widow of John Smith.  She lived here with her young adult daughter, Madeleine Anne.  Madeleine graduated from the College of New Rochelle and received her Master of Arts degree from Columbia University.

Madeleine was married to Lieutenant John Francis Butler in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on May 5, 1944.  The groom had just returned from deployment overseas.  

Julia Smith died in 1954.  In reporting that her estate had sold the house, The New York Times remarked, "It has ten rooms, three baths, and a garden."

Novelist and poet Erica Jong purchased 125 East 94th Street following her divorce from Jonathan Fast in 1983.  She moved in with the couple's five-year-old daughter, Molly Jong-Fast.  Jong also maintained a country home in Weston, Connecticut.

Bernard Gotfryd created his portrait of Erica Jong in 1969.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Dr. Du Bois's former office was still in the basement level and Jong leased it to what Molly Jong-Fast described as "sexologists."  In her How to Lose Your Mother, Jong-Fast writes:

The house looked like all the other narrow brownstone houses on the sloping block, but it wasn't the same.  She painted the front door bubblegum pink.  People who visited the house said it looked like a haunted bordello, but that wasn't because the house was haunted--that was because my mother had terrible taste.  She put floral wallpaper in each room.  Later she'd hang paintings of people having sex (bequeathed by the sexologists who would move into the basement) on that floral wallpaper.

Erica Jong was best known for her novel Fear of Flying, published a decade before she purchased 125 East 94th Street.  The controversial book's slant on female sexuality would greatly influence what was termed by some the "feminist wars."  By 2022, the book would have worldwide sales of more than 37 million copies, according to The New York Times.

Like her mother, Molly Jong-Fast would go on to a career as novelist and journalist.  By then, she and her mother would have moved on from 125 East 94th Street.

In 1997, it was purchased by Lisa and Perry Gershon--a lawyer and a real estate finance executive, respectively.  In reporting on the sale, The New York Times remarked that of the 1879 row, it was "one of the two brownstones left with its rosettes intact--its stoop standing proud, its interior spaces unblemished by conversion to apartments."  The article said, "the interior spaces were a bit tattered, but the house remained a single-family residence, with an office on the ground floor."

Astoundingly, given its long list of residents and owners, outwardly 125 East 94th Street survives essentially intact.

photographs by the author

The Wendolin J. Nauss House - 17 East 94th Street

Acting as their own developers, Robert N. Cleverdon and Joseph Putzel almost single-handedly transformed the northern blockfront of East 94th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues in 1892.  That year they started construction on two rows of upscale residences--one group of five, the other of six.  Plans projected the building costs to be $20,000 each; more than half a million dollars today.

The more easterly row, 15 through 25, were designed in an A-B-C-C-B-A pattern.  The "B" houses, Nos. 17 and 23, were a profusion of shapes and textures.  Stone carvers would have spent months on the intricate Romanesque Revival decorations--the stubby capitals of the sweeping dog-legged stoop and of the engaged columns of the parlor floor, the exquisite basket-weave cornice above the entrance, the tangle of leaves and knots in the base of the second story bay, and the lavish spandrel above the third floor openings, for instance.

The intricate bay and basket weave cornice are masterworks of the stone carver's craft.  The paired, engaged columns share a capital. Terra cotta tiles fill every other void in the band below the bay--originally creating a delight of contrasting shades before a coat of paint.

Cleverdon & Putzel gave the stonework of each story a different treatment--rusticated at the basement level, planar at the parlor, banded at the second, overall-carved at the third and rough-cut at the fourth.  The contrast of colors and materials added to the shapes and forms to create a vibrant facade.  The architects gave a brief concession to the newly-popular Queen Anne style with an alternating checkerboard pattern of terra cotta floral tiles and blind spaces below the second story bay.

Construction was completed in 1894 and 17 East 94th Street was purchased by Wendolin J. Nauss, president of Nauss Brothers Co., provision merchants.  With him in the firm were Frederic, Charles and Adam Nauss.  Like many other merchants and manufacturers at the time, Nauss invested heavily in real estate.  He built and maintained tenement houses and commercial buildings.

The 45-year old and his wife, Anna, had six children, Wendolin, Jr., Edward, Anna, Frederick, Charles, and Florence.  Their summer home was in Larchmont, New York and it was there, in June 1905 that the couple hosted a dinner to announce the engagement of their youngest daughter, Anna Louise, to Frederick Porter Smitley of Pittsburgh.

By 1918 Wendolin and Anna lived alone in the house with their staff.  The sons by now had been taken into the family business, as had Florence's husband, Henry J. Hildebrandt.  Wendolin died that year, leaving an estate of $966,990--or more than $15 million today.

Tragically, the following year on December 18 27-year-old Edward died.  Anna had sold the 94th Street house eight months earlier.

It became home to Herbert J. Stursberg, and his wife, the former Marie Louise Vietor.  A 1912 graduate of Yale, Stursberg had served in Squadron A, one of the Army's "aero squadrons" during the war.  Their country home, Cranbury Farm, was Norwalk, Connecticut.

An easily-overlooked detail are the whimsical faces staring out from the top floor.

In 1933 Swami Nikhilananda founded the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center--the New York City branch of the Ramakrishna Order of India.  It is based on the System of Vendanta, a form of Hinduism established in the 19th century and demonstrated by Sri Ramakrishna. 

The Stursbergs sold the 94th Street house to the Center in 1939.  In reporting the sale, The New York Times described the group as a "Hindu cultist organization."  The article noted that it would move into the mansion "upon completion of extensive alterations."  The top three stories remained a single family house, while the basement and parlor level were converted to that Department of Buildings documents termed a "chapel."

As it does today, the Center provided services and classes, as well as guest speakers.  Swami Nikhilananda, whose name translates loosely as Brother Felicity, spoke frankly to the press about his thoughts on Communism upon his return from India in June 1949.  He told reporters "Communism never will succeed in India."  The Times reported that during his five-month trip, "he conferred with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and other Government officials and 'did not hear a single word from anybody about wanting Communism.'"

The purpose of the Swami's press conference was less political than humanitarian.  He stressed that because of the "chaos and Communism in the Far East," Indians were not getting sufficient food.  The importing of rice into the country had been halted and he called for "downright American aid."

Lectures in the Center were not limited to Hindu topics.  In November 1950, for instance, Japanese author D. T. Suzuki spoke on "Buddhist Mysticism."

The Center drew followers from all economic, political and social areas.  Author J. D. Salinger accepted the Swami as his spiritual teacher, and regularly attended the classes and services from around 1960 until his death in 2010.

German-born artist Max Beckmann and his second wife, Mathilda von Kaulbach, better known as Quappi, became members in the early 1950s.  According to Beckmann's biographer, Sabine Rewald in her 2016 Max Beckmann in New York, Swami Nikhilananda was highly influential in Quappi's life and "became for her an anchor."

Around 2005 the Center expanded into the house next door at No. 19.  Of all the other houses in the row, only the Nauss residence retains its stoop.  A regrettable coat of gray paint obliterates Cleverdon & Putzel's purposeful contrast of colors and materials; but their delightful design remains otherwise untouched,

photographs by the author

The Leon M. Hirsch House - 15 East 94th St

Doubling as architects and developers, Robert N. Cleverdon and Joseph Putzel began construction of nearly the entire northern blockfront of East 94th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues in 1892.  Designed as two projects--one group of five houses, the other of six--the Romanesque Revival residence were aimed at the upper class.  Plans projected the building costs to be $20,000 each; more than half a million dollars today.

The more easterly row, Nos. 15 through 25, were designed in an A-B-C-C-B-A pattern.  The two end homes strayed from the strictly Romanesque Revival style with striking results.  While the other homes displayed the expected squat or beefy columns with complex medieval capitals, the parlor levels of the end houses were formal and classical.  Four stately, fluted Doric columns upheld a purely Greek entablature.  The Doric order reappeared at the top level in a dramatic and visually stunning loggia.

An intricate dentiled cornice runs below the pressed frieze. Swirling carvings on either end of the frieze below the loggia were up-to-date takes on the Romanesque.

The second floor was dominated by a projecting bay.  The shape of the oversized, triangular pediments of the little flanking openings, too, balked at the Romanesque; while conceding to the style in the carved decorations.  Below the cast metal cornice, which upheld an unusual and decorative arcade-like parapet, was a frieze of neo-Classical wreaths and garlands.

The rolling, foliate brackets at the base of the bay--serving no purpose than to be visually appealing--are a charming detail.

Leon M. Hirsch purchased No. 15 in the spring of 1895, a few months after its completion.  He paid $39,000--a little over $1.1 million today.   The house would be an active one--Hirsch and his wife, the former Sarah Strauss, had six children.

Leon Hirsch was 55-years old at the time.  He had come to New York from his native Paris when he was 7 years old.  An enterprising youth, he started his own business at the age of 17 when he noticed an opportunity hiding in plain sight.

Shoe manufacturers provided retailers with samples to be used by their "drummers"--the men who stood on the sidewalk in front of the stores to lure customers inside.  When the season was over and new styles appeared, the samples were returned.  Unable to sell them as new, the makers discarded them.  The teen recognized that the practice was not only as a pitiable waste; but a splendid business opportunity.

Hirsch began buying the nearly-new samples at absurdly low prices.  The manufacturers were, of course, eager to get rid of them with at least some cash return.  He then resold the shoes, prompting The New York Times to later note "He then made a more or less secure corner of the sample shoe market in New York for some time, and his business grew."

His business not only grew, but made Hirsch rich.  By the time he purchased the 94th Street house, he was also heavily investing in real estate.

The first major event in the house was the wedding of daughter Aline to Dr. Henry Spitzer in January 1899.  The social stature to which the boy who resold shoe samples had climbed was evidenced by the wedding being covered by the New-York Tribune.  The article noted that Aline's lace veil was "held in place by a diamond ornament, a gift from the bridegroom."

In January 1909 Hirsch caught a cold traveling between the house and his shoe store in the Centre Market on the Lower East Side.  On the 29th it developed into pneumonia and he died at the age of 65 just five days later on February 3.

Financially, his death could not have come at a more inopportune time for Sarah.  His estate, all of which was left to her, was tied up in what The New York Times called "large property holdings."  But the devastating effects of the Financial Panic of 1907, considered one of the three worst depressions since the end of the Civil War, were still being felt nationwide.  There was still a $20,000 mortgage on the 94th Street house and the real estate environment made liquidating the Hirsch holdings impossible.

Sarah kept up appearances, while she gleaned the income from the properties.  In November 1913 daughter Nannette was married to the well-to-do lawyer Jacob Newman in the Hotel Gotham.   Sarah's brother, Charles Straus gave the bride away.  He was president of the Board of Water Supply of the City of New York.  No one in the ballroom that afternoon would suspect that Sarah was struggling.

Society weddings were expensive events.  One week after Nannette's, Sarah announced the engagement of Gladys on December 7, with the wedding to be held in June 1914.   It may have been the cause of the family's selling of Leon's art collection.

On January 23, 1914 the American Art Galleries announced the upcoming "unrestricted Public Sale" of the "private collection of valuable paintings by the Old Masters and early English painters formed by the late Leon Hirsch."

Then on March 29 Charles Straus, as executor of Hirsch's estate, petitioned the courts "for leave to place a second mortgage of $15,000" on the 94th street house.  Straus was frank in describing his sister's financial plight and explained that all efforts to liquidate the Hirsch real estate were fruitless.

The wedding of Gladys to William W. Silberman was held in the house on June 6.  Charles Strauss once again stood in for the bride's father in giving her away.  This would be the last social event Sarah would preside over here.  She died on December 4 that year.

The family leased the house to Dr. Antonio M. Crispin, finally selling it to him in October of 1920. 
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1871, he had come to New York at the age of 7.  When just 20 years old he received his medical degree from the Bellevue Medical School.

He and his wife, Dorothy, had two daughters and one son.  By the time he moved into the former Hirsch house, he was head surgeon of the French, Columbus and Broad Street Hospitals.  Nationally-recognized, he wrote technical articles in periodicals like The Literary Digest, the Monthly Cyclopedia and Medical Bulletin, and The American Journal of Surgery. He co-founded the Spanish-American Medical Society in New York, and served as its president.

The couple's unmarried daughter, Maria, was still living with her parents as late as 1934 when she was listed as a member of the Association of Private School Teachers.

After being retired for several years, Crispin moved to Boonton, New Jersey around 1939.  The house was sold and in February 1940 a conversion to apartments--two per floor--was completed.  Other than removing the stoop and moving the entrance to the basement level, the renovations left the facade mostly untouched.

Other than the expected updates, like replacement windows, the Hirsch house looks little different than it did in February 1940 when the stoop was taken away.  Its one-time twin at No. 25 East 94th Street has been radically altered; leaving No. 15 to display Cleverdon & Putzel's surprising and engaging blend of two totally unrelated historical styles.

photographs by the author

The Joseph Hodges Choate Mansion - Nos. 10-12 East 94th Street

In 1891, Samuel Sinn purchased the newly-completed rowhouse at 12 East 94th Street.  Designed by A. B. Ogden & Son for developer John H. Gray, it was one of a string of new brownstone-faced houses.  The 49-year-old was a member of the brokerage firm Sternberger, Furd & Sinn.  He and his wife, the former Diana Horkheimer of Virginia, had one son, Bernard, who was attending New York City College.

Bernard graduated from Cornell University in 1907 and went into banking.  The following year, on May 13, his father died.  The funeral was held in the 94th Street house two days later.

Diana Sinn and her son remained in the house.  Next door at No. 10 lived the Neuburger family.  Isidor Neuburger, who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, was the founder of the Neuburger Silk Company.  He died in his home at the age of 66 on January 22 1916.

By the time of Neuburger's death, the 25-year-old rowhouses were architecturally out of date.  Steps away, at the corner of Fifth Avenue, the magnificent neo-Georgian mansion of Willard D. Straight had been completed the year before; and two blocks to the south Andrew Carnegie's grand home was in the same style.  The Sinn and Neuburger houses would be pulled into the trend before long.

On the afternoon of New Year's Eve 1918, the New-York Tribune reported, "Joseph H. Choate, jr., is going to become a resident of Carnegie Hill, as the section adjoining the town house of Andrew Carnegie has become known."

The article explained, "Mr. Choate has bought the two old four-story dwelling houses at 10 and 12 East Ninety-fourth Street...He will have the two houses reconstructed into one dwelling from plans by G. B. De Gersdorff, architect."

Like his father, Joseph Hodges Choate, Jr. had graduated from Harvard and was a well-respected attorney.  Yet his own successes would always be overshadowed by his father's reputation--he was the Ambassador to the Court of St. James under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and headed the American delegation of the Second International Peace Conference in the Hague in 1907.

Choate and his architect had a Harvard connection.  The 1903 Harvard Stadium had been designed by George B. de Gersdorff.  For the extensive remodeling project, De Gersdorff followed the trend begun in the neighborhood by Andrew Carnegie in 1903, turning to the neo-Georgian style (with a splash of the harmonious neo-Federal).

The 42-year-old attorney and his wife, the former Cora Lyman Oliver, were living at 158 East 71st Street near Lexington Avenue.  Cora, too, had an illustrious father.  Brigadier General Robert Shaw Oliver was a Civil War veteran and former Assistant Secretary of War.  The couple, married in 1903, had three daughters, Marion, Helen and Priscilla, and a son Joseph 3d.

The family moved into their new home in the first months of 1920.  No trace of the combined high-stooped brownstones remained.  George B. de Gersdorff had produced a refined residence of Flemish bond red brick trimmed in contrasting limestone.  The stone-framed entrance, topped by a projecting cornice, was slightly offset.  Its double doors were adorned with a handsome iron fanlight.  (Interestingly, while the fanlight design incorporated the street number "12," the Choates would variously list their address as either "10" or "12.")

The second floor, or piano mobile, featured four shallow arches that embraced French doors opening onto cast iron balconettes.  Splayed lintels capped the openings, and a stone modillioned cornice capped the facade.  Above, three copper-clad dormers pierced the high peaked roof.

Cora Choate wasted no time in opening the doors to her new home.  She was an active supporter of presidential candidate Leonard Wood.  On April 27, 1920, the New-York Tribune noted, "Many meetings for women interested in the campaign of Leonard Wood for President will be held this week."  Among those events, it reported, "Thursday evening, Mrs. Joseph Choate jr. will hold a meeting for business women at her home, 10 East Ninety-fourth Street."

More than four decades earlier, on February 28, 1878, Mrs, John Jay hosted the first meeting of the Thursday Evening Club in her Washington Square mansion.  She intended the social club to “maintain its standard, and to make it increasingly a centre of intellectual intercourse and recreation, by resisting every tendency to ostentation or extravagance in its entertainments and by welcoming to its fellowship those whose credentials are to be found in cultivated tastes and literary or artistic accomplishments.”

Now Joseph and Cora resuscitated the exclusive group.  On March 16, 1922, The New York Herald reported, 

The meeting of the Thursday Evening Club last week with Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Choate at 10 East Ninety-fourth street revived memories of an organization unique in the history of society and which has withstood all changes, in that august body, that naturally have come about with new ideas and the shifting of individual families whose homes at the start of the club seemed almost fixtures for generations.

As with all moneyed families, lavish entertaining for the children centered around the girls.  In 1922, the focus of attention would turn to the debutante festivities for Marion.  They started out on December 5, 1923 with a reception and musicale for 200 "older friends" of her parents.  "Next Wednesday evening," reported The New York Times, "Mrs. Choate will give a dinner dance for Miss Choate and the young dancing set."  The 50 guests invited to that dinner included Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. and the namesake of her aunt, the Duchess of Marlboro.

In 1925 it was Helen's turn.  Her debut included a dinner and dance on December 11 for guests with socially-elite names like Belmont, Iselin, Stokes, Baker, Phelps and Burden.  And in 1927 Priscilla was feted with her coming out entertainments.

One-by-one the Choate girls married.  When Helen married Geoffrey Platt in the Church of the Heavenly Rest on December 20, 1932, The New York Times noted "The marriage is of wide interest not only in this city but Washington D. C., and London as well," reminding readers of Helen's grandfather's government positions.  Following the ceremony the Choates opened their 94th Street mansion ("which had been decorated with ferns, palms and various kinds of white flowers") for the reception.

Two years later the reception for Priscilla's marriage to Norwood Penrose Hallowell, Jr., was held here.  Like her sister, she was wedded in the Church of the Heavenly Rest.

On November 29, 1933, Joseph H. Choate, Jr. was appointed director and chairman of the Federal Alcohol Control Committee by President Franklin Roosevelt, making him the "virtual 'liquor czar,'" as described by The New York Times.  The position was necessary because of the reversal of the Volstead Act, eliminating Prohibition.

Choate was responsible, according to the President, for three main goals: To ensure that States had full authority over methods of sale; that the public was provided with "pure liquor at moderate prices;" and that bootlegging was eliminated.   His appointment was well deserved.  He had fought arduously for the repeal of Prohibition for years.

Among the domestic staff in the Choate home was Mary Maroney.  The 55-year-old maid helped teach a would-be mugger not to mess with feisty Irish girls on November 15 1945.  At around 10:00 that night, 21-year-old Price Swift had attempted to grab a purse from a school teacher, Mary Sheahan, on Madison Avenue.  The 35-year-old woman refused to let go and the two ended up on the pavement struggling.  Mary's screams were heard by her father "who ran from their home, near Eighty-ninth Street, swinging a combination cane and shillelagh," reported The New York Times.  "Although Mr. Sheahan struck him, the suspect escaped."

Fifteen minutes later Mary Maroney was leaving the Choate mansion.  Just as she arrived at the corner of 94th Street and Fifth Avenue, Swift attacked.  She told police he tried to drag her into an alley, but she ferociously fought back.  Swift fled, but not before a passerby had summoned police.

He was caught four blocks away.  "Although he protested his innocence he was identified by the two women and Mr. Sheahan, and was charged with felonious assault and robbery," said the newspaper.

Cora Choate died in the family's country home in Mount Kisco, New York on November 11, 1955 at the age of 79.  Long active in the operations of the New York Orthopaedic Dispensary and Hospital, later part of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, she had served on its board of supervisors for over two decades and was its third vice president.

The following year, in November, Joseph Choate sold the mansion to the Louise Wise Services.  After renovations, the house was opened with a reception and supper on June 11, 1958.  Founded in 1918 by Louise Waterman Wise to find homes for Jewish orphans, it now "provides aid to unmarried Jewish mothers and adoption services for children up to 14 years," according to its chairman, Justice Polier.

The Louise Wise Services was forward thinking--possibly too much so in some instances.  In 1963, the institution initiated a strong appeal for white couples to adopt black orphans.  The results would have been disheartening for most agencies.  A year later the program had failed to place even one youngster.

But executive assistant Mignon Krause insisted that "the outlook was not completely pessimistic" and pointed out the agency's work in other areas.  Writing in The New York Times on April 27, 1964, Emma Harrison reported, "Louise Wise, which once placed only Jewish children, has had unusual success in placing American Indian children and children of mixed marriages."

In 1969 Louise Wise Services addressed another often overlooked group: unwed fathers.  "In unmarried pregnancies, people often think it's the poor girl and the ruthless seducer," explained Marianne Blatt, head of the agency's Services to Unmarried Parents.  "But very often it's a frightened boy and an aggressive girl."  Now Louise Wise Services began offering counseling programs to the young men.

In 1991, the former mansion was divided into two rental apartments, one using the former service entrance to the east, the other the main doorway.  When D. Claeys Bahrenburg, formerly chairman of Petersen Publications, purchased the 12,000-square-foot house in 2000 for $7 million, he found upscale amenities in the upscale apartments: a hidden movie screen in the front room of the parlor floor, two marble baths and Jacuzzi on the third; and the upper triplex contained three guest bedrooms, four marble baths and a master bedroom suite accessed by a sky-lit staircase.

Bahrenburg made no changes, and put the house back on the market in January 2001 for $11.5 million.  Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn initiated a two-year renovation that returned the mansion to a single family residence.  While she operates her gallery, Salon 94, from the ground floor, there is no signage; and the prim colonial-inspired house retains its 1920 integrity.

photographs by the author