photograph by Carole Teller
Starting in 1867, reformers worked tirelessly during the 19th century to enhance living conditions among tenement dwellers. Fire safety, ventilation and sanitary conditions were gradually improved. The ultimate statute was the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901, passed on April 12 that year. Referred as the "New Law," it required central courtyards that replaced the earlier airshafts, and demanded that tenements sit upon more than one building lot.
Brothers Michael and Mitchell Bernstein comprised the prolific architectural firm of Bernstein & Bernstein. They were, perhaps, best known for designing tenement buildings. In 1901 developer William Shulmann commissioned them to design another at 202 and 204 East 6th Street just east of Third Avenue.
The Renaissance Revival style, six-story structure was faced in red brick and heavily trimmed with terra cotta. It cost Shulman $35,000 to construct, or about $1.37 million in 2026 terms. The residential entrance above a three-step stoop was flanked by polished granite Scamozzi columns that upheld over-sized scrolled brackets. Above the highly carved entablature was a molded cornice. A pressed metal frieze of swags ran atop the three storefronts.
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Originally, three stores occupied the ground floor. via NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The second floor windows were flanked by Corinthian pilasters decorated by trailing bellflowers and topped with lintels with cartouches surrounded by wreaths. Elaborate terra cotta panels connected the second and third floor windows, the latter embellished with intricated triangular pediments. The fourth and fifth windows wore top-heavy terra cotta lintels and pediments, arched at the fourth and pyramidal at the fifth. Paneled brick piers separated the openings of the top floor and a corbeled cornice with a swagged frieze ran along the roofline. Rather confusingly, Bernstein & Bernstein strayed from the Italian Renaissance in the two central bays. Here the windows sat below flared Colonial Revival stone voussoirs.
Renaissance Revival and neo-Colonial window treatments coexist side by side. photograph by Carole Teller
One of the store spaces became a restaurant. On September 2, 1904, Michael Connelly, a driver for the E. Mass Bottling Company, pulled his wagon to the curb to deliver an order of beer. While he was busy inside, according to the New York Herald, "A crowd of urchins amused themselves tickling the animals and poking them with sticks until the team ran away." The article noted, "There was a story that some of the boys stuck pins into the horses."
The panicked horses galloped to Second Avenue. In avoiding a trolley car, they bolted across the sidewalk and crashed into the stores of money broker Emil Kiss, at 104 Second Avenue, and tailor S. Kleiner next door. The storefronts were two steps below the sidewalk. The New York Herald reported, "The horses leaped down into this, pulling the wagon after them, and one of the animals fell sidewise into Kiss's show window, scattering foreign gold coins and paper money as far as the middle of Second avenue by his frightened kicks." The wagon ended up inside Kleiner's tailor shop.
There was a scramble for the bills and coins in the street. The New York Herald said (although Kiss had not yet tallied his losses), "He had just spent $100 for elaborate sign painting on the window and put in some showy brass fixtures, which were wrecked." Next door, Kleiner had "a lot of fine cloth and new clothes" in his window. The goods were now "filled with little cuts by glass splinters." The horses, happily, while injured, "can be saved," said the article. Expectedly, the wagon and the barrels of beer were "damaged."
Meantime, inside the restaurant was a coin-operated music box, the early 20th century version of a juke box. The proprietor decided to sell it in 1908. His advertisement in the New York Evening Telegram on August 1 read:
Largest size Regina music box; changes tunes automatically; cost $400; all new; $100. Restaurant, 202 East 6th st.
The coin-operated Regina music box would have been similar to this model. image via M. S. Rau Antiques
The expensive instrument would have cost the restaurant owner the equivalent of $14,000 today.
The newly-formed Schorr & Popsk moved into one of the storefronts in 1911. In its January 1912 issue, The Sheet Metal Shop announced its opening and described the firm as a "new sheet metal and roofing business."
Living here at the time were immigrants, many of them Russian and German Jews.
via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Henry Schemby lived here in 1915. The 42-year-old worked as a handyman for a Brooklyn doctor. On January 23, that year, The Daily Standard Union reported, "while cleaning the slush off the stoop of Dr. Robert Scott...to-day, [Schemby] was seized with epilepsy and fell, receiving lacerations of the scalp."
Born in Russia, S. Podolsky was living here prior to his homeland's being wracked by world war and revolution. On December 16, 1917, The New York Times titled an article, "Jews in Russia Seek Their Friends Here." The article went on to say that throngs of Russian immigrants here were seeking news from their relatives, as well. Among those urgently trying to find information on his relatives in Russia was S. Podolsky.
One of the three shops became a storefront mission as early as 1919. It also served as what today would be called a homeless shelter. The New York Charities Directory in 1920 described Mission Hall saying, "Gospel services carried on nightly and at times worthy women and men are given lodgings; coffee and rolls served nightly."
John Kassman's saloon-restaurant became merely a restaurant after the enactment of Prohibition. On the night of October 26, 1924, a man entered and announced that he was a Special Service Division detective. He displayed a badge and demanded to make an inspection, "because of a number of complaints that he had received," according to Kassman. Although Kassman did not object, the agent whispered that "trouble could be adjusted with money."
via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Discreetly, Kassman directed one of his employees to find a policeman. Shortly afterward, Sergeant Kelly and Patrolman Falls responded. John Carney attempted to confirm his authority, but was unable to convince the officers. As they were interrogating him, an object fell on the floor. "It was a gold shield bearing the inscription, 'Special Officer,'" reported The New York Sun. The 28-year-old was arrested for impersonating a Special Service Division detective.
A restaurant occupied the space into the 1940s. By 1940, R & W Trucking Company occupied the middle storefront while the other held a barbershop.
The exuberant terra cotta was originally a cream color. photograph by Carole Teller
In the last quarter of the 20th century the terminal cornice was replaced with less ornamental example. By then, the 1901 storefronts had been modernized. In 2020, the red brick was painted white and the elaborate terra cotta, the stone voussoirs, and the outlines of the top floor piers were painted black.
many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post
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