The John L. and Sadie E. Stockton House - 48 Edgecombe Avenue

 

In January 1897, the architectural firm of Neville and Bagge filed plans for an ambitious row of rowhouses that would fill the eastern blockfront of Edgecombe Avenue, from 137th to 138th Street for developers Egan & Hallery.  Completed early in 1898, the corner houses were the most desirable, being slightly wider and enjoying the extra exposure to natural light and ventilation.

The residence on the southern corner, 48 Edgecombe Avenue, had cost $15,000 to construct--about half a million in 2022 dollars.  Three stories tall above a high English basement, it was faced in red brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  While overall Renaissance Revival in style, Neville & Bagge gave its windows splayed lintels, reminiscent of neo-Georgian.  The Aesthetic style capitals of the engaged, fluted entrance columns cleverly morphed into a decorative terra cotta bandcourse that wrapped the parlor floor facade.

Rather than sell 48 Edgecombe Avenue, John J. Egan (a partner in Egan & Hallery), moved his family in.  He and his wife, Eleanor, had a son, Frederick.  Business troubles would make the family's residency relatively short.  Egan lost the house in foreclosure in 1904.

In 1908 Charles Schenck and his wife purchased the house.  The couple, who had married on February 12, 1907, had just returned from what The American Florist deemed, "quite an extended wedding tour of the south."   Schenck was a partner in Traendly & Schenck, a society florist.  (In 1933 the firm would discover the rose named the Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.)  The couple moved into their new home in time for the arrival of a baby daughter.

Around 1910, the Schencks began sharing their large home with the Wolff family.  It would seem that the Wolff family occupied more of the house than the Schencks.  Adeline Wolff's husband, Charles, had died on March 25, 1907.  Moving in with her were her son, Eugene, and daughter Marcelle.  The population increased further when Adeline married Isaac Pachner.  Now the Schencks had two more boarders, Isaac's daughter Annie and son-in-law, Julius Tucker.  (Pachner had four other children by his earlier marriage.)

Isaac Pachner was a partner in the cap manufacturing firm of Lichtenstein-Pachner Co.  He held at least three patents on headgear, one of which had a built-in visor that could be lowered while driving.  

Charles Schenck hired the architectural firm of Cohen & Felson to make interior renovations in 1914.  The reconfiguration of some walls was made at the time.  

In 1918 the Schencks moved to New Rochelle, New York, and in December sold 48 Edgecombe Avenue to S. Norma Winch.  She and her husband, Charles A. Winch, were real estate operators.

Following World War I, the demographics of the Harlem neighborhood changed as the Black community migrated northward.  The Winches were still listed here in 1920, but the following year their former home had become the home of Rev. Alexander C. Garner, who had just been appointed the first rector of the nearby Grace Congregational Church on West 139th Street.  

Born in Maryville, Tennessee in 1867, Garner had served in World War I as chaplain of the 369th Infantry, a Black and Hispanic regiment.  He and his wife had three daughters and a son, Maynard, who was attending Howard University (his father's alma mater) when they moved in.  In 1922, Garner was appointed to the Committee of Inter-Racial Co-Operation of the National Council of the Congregational Churches.

Garner's work  extended beyond the spiritual.  He established the first day nursery in Harlem, enabling mothers to work.  His support of the performing arts among Harlemites earned Grace Church under his rectorship the nickname, "Church of the Actors."  His activism for the improvement of Black circumstances was evidenced in a letter to the editor of The New York Age in September 1925.  Mayor John Hylan had chosen a Black campaign manager, but his background was shady at best, at least from Garner's perspective.  He wrote in part:

Men of the type selected by the Mayor to represent my race have no influence with the people of the community.  After serving two terms as Mayor, the Negroes of Harlem and elsewhere are surprised to find that the Chief Executive of the city would assume that the colored citizens would follow the leadership of a man whose record cannot stand public investigation.  Under no circumstances would he name a white man with a similar record.

In 1926, 48 Edgecombe Avenue became the parsonage of St. Mark's Methodist Church, directly across the street, and home to the Rev. Lorenzo F. King.  Interestingly, John L. Stockton and his wife, Sadie, moved in at the same time.  Although Stockton was a clerk-in-charge at the General Post Office, he was best known within the community for his post as the general church school superintendent of St. James Presbyterian Church on West 141st Street.  Unusual for Black women of the period, Sadie E. Stockton was a college graduate, having attended Knoxville College.  They had a son, Chauncey.

Stockton and his wife were active in the religious and social welfare circles of the district.  In 1930 Sadie was involved with the Hope Day Nursery and both she and John traveled for their causes.  On June 11, 1932, for instance, The New York Age reported, "John L. Stockton attended the Presbyterian General Assembly at Denver, Col., as a delegate from the St. James Presbyterian Church."  Stockton made a couple personal side trips.  The article noted that he "writes that he will visit Colorado Springs, Grand Canyon, cities in California and Seattle, Wash., before returning home about June 22."

By the time of the 1940 census, only the Stocktons lived in the house.  The couple's son, Chauncey was now 25 years old.  It is unclear when they left the Edgecombe Avenue house, but were living in the Bronx when John died on September 8, 1953.

After nearly a century of being home to two families, at some point in the second half of the 20th century, 48 Edgecombe Avenue was officially converted to a two-family residence.   The exterior survives beautifully intact, including the striking 1898 ironwork along the areaway.

photographs by the author

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The Charming 1890 Hold-Out at 88 Edgecombe Avenue

George J. Hamilton was both an architect and real estate developer.  He worked tirelessly in the Harlem district in the 1880's and '90's erecting flat buildings and rowhouses.  In January 1889 he filed plans to erect twelve residences--18 and 19 feet wide each--along the block front of Edgecombe Avenue between 138th and 139th Streets.  Each was to cost $8,500 to construct--around $239,000 today.  

His Queen Anne style row was completed in the spring of 1890.  Like its neighbors, No. 88 Edgecombe Avenue rose three stories above a high English basement.  The basement and first floor were faced in rough-cut brownstone; the upper floors in red brick.  The grouping of three parlor floor  windows was enhanced with stained glass transoms.   A metal-clad rounded bay rose two stories to a conical "witch's cap" which protruded from the slate shingled mansard.

Interestingly, the title to No. 88 was held by Hamilton's wife, Ida M.  Equally interesting (or more so) was the deal she made on September 6, 1890.  She transferred the title to the Lorillard Brick Works Co., "with agreement to deliver bricks."  The new owner soon sold the house to Edwin D. Smith, Jr.

Smith was a physician.  Living with him in the 14-room house was his mother, Emily.  Dr. Smith had two sisters, Lucille and Mildred, and a brother, George De F. Smith.

After Dr. Smith's death around 1903 the Edgecombe Avenue house was inherited in equal shares by his sisters.  In the summer of 1904 Mildred sold her half to Lucille, whose married name was Martin.  

For a year she leased the house to the Felix Russak family.  Russak was head of the insurance firm Felix Russak & Co. on Pine Street.  He had gone into the insurance field in 1874 and was deemed by The Insurance Press "a gentleman of the old school."  The family's social station was high enough to earn them mention in the society pages.  On June 25, 1905, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported "Miss Lotta Russak, of No. 88 Edgecombe-ave., is at Huntington, Long Island."

Lotta's engagement to Emil Klett of Berlin, Germany was announced later that year, on November 25.  The New York Herald remarked "Mrs. Russak and her daughter recently returned from an extensive tour of Europe."

The following month Lucille Martin sold the house to John Rankin.  He and his wife, Mary, had a daughter, Margaret.  They took in at least one boarder by 1910, real estate operator Edward A. Bell.

Rankin advertised the house for sale in April 1911, describing it as "handsomely furnished, in fine repair, must sell."  Nevertheless, it did not sell and the Rankins continued living here.  His eagerness to sell had cooled in 1915 when developers began purchasing up almost all the properties on the block as the site of an apartment house.  Or it may have simply been his greed that resulted in No. 88 being vised in by the modern structures which were completed in 1916.

If, indeed, Rankin had held out for more money, his plan backfired.  He offered the property for sale again in May 1918 with a price tag of just $10,000--about $170,000 today.   Before he could find a buyer, Margaret died.  Her funeral was held in the house on December 14, 1919.

Mabel A. Dreyer purchased No. 88 and converted it to furnished rooms by 1921, earning it the Department of Building's tag "tenement house" that year.  She advertised "Front Room, modern apartment; kitchen privileges" for one or two tenants in May 1923.

By now Harlem had become the center of Manhattan's Black community.  In the first years of the 1930's the tenants of No. 88 were well-heeled professionals, such as Dr. William C. Roane and his wife, the former Carita Y. Owens, who moved in in May 1931.  The couple had been married in May the previous year.  

They wasted no time in opening their home.  On August 1 that year The New York Age reported, "Arthur Reason of St. Louis, Mo., was the guest last week of Dr. and Mrs. William C. Roane, 88 Edgecombe avenue.  While here Prof. Reason was entertained at dinner by Mr. and Mrs. S. Van Holmes of the Dunbar Apartments."

And six months later, on January 9, 1932, the same newspaper reported "Mr. and Mrs. John Matthews, Miss Madeline Matthews and Mr. Mickens of Washington D. C. and Counselor William A. Pollard of Philadelphia, Penn., were the holiday guests of Dr. and Mrs. William C. Roane, 88 Edgecombe avenue."

Carita Roane was a manager of the New York State Employment Service.  On April 9, 1938 The New York Age reported that she and her husband would be spending a week at the home of Mr. and Mrs. P. T. Greene, in Washington D. C.  "The purpose of Mrs. Roane's visit to Washington is to attend a conference with Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt."

Throughout the 1930's newspapers reported on the comings and goings of the residents of the house.  At some point before 1940 the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to the ground floor.  A Greek Revival enframement, perhaps salvaged from a demolished house, was installed.

In 1941 the house had lost its stoop.  The architects of the large apartment houses designed them around the vintage home.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The residents continued to be respectable and professional.  In the 1950's Robert Douglas and his wife, Sadie, lived here.  He was the manager of the sprawling Renaissance Ballroom and Casino.

Today there are four apartments in the Smith house.  The stubborn hold out is one of two surviving relics of George J. Hamilton's 1890 row (the other being at the southern corner).

photograph by the author

The Patrick J. Walsh House - 76 Edgecombe Avenue

The entrance was originally above a high stone stoop, directly behind the corner light pole.

George J. Hamilton was both an architect and real estate developer.  He worked tirelessly in the Harlem district in the 1880's and '90's erecting flat buildings and rowhouses.  In January 1889 he filed plans to erect twelve residences--18 and 19 feet wide each--along the block front of Edgecombe Avenue between 138th and 139th Streets.  Each was to cost $8,500 to construct--around $239,000 today.  

His Queen Anne style row was completed in the spring of 1890.  Like its neighbors, No. 76 on the southern corner, rose three stories above a high English basement.  The basement and first floor were faced in rough-cut brownstone; the upper floors in red brick.  The rounded corner was topped by a conical "witch's cap" fronting a shallow mansard roof.

Immediately upon completion Hamilton sold the entire group to Nelson Cadmus, including in the deal eight more new houses around the corner on West 139th Street.  Cadmus paid the equivalent of $9.9 million for the 20 dwellings.

On December 8 No. 76 was sold to Patrick J. Walsh, a well-known and successful builder, for $21,400 (just above $600,000 today).  Walsh and his wife, Ellen, moved into the house with their three small children--two daughters and a son.

Tragically, their youngest daughter, Madeline, died in their new home on November 20, 1891.  She was only 8-years old.  Her funeral was held in the parlor four days later.

William J. Walsh was 10-years old when the family moved to Edgecombe Avenue.  He entered business college rather than high school so he would be prepared to work in his father's office.  And after graduating in July 1897, he did so.

But then, caught up in the passionate wave of patriotism that swept the country when the United States entered the Spanish-American War, William sneaked away to enlist in the 71st Regiment.  He kept it a secret from his parents until he was called away to Camp Black.

Before long William was in Cuba fighting.  The New York Herald wrote "Cheerful letters were received from him from Southern camps and from Cuba.  The last was written on the day following the battle about San Juan Hill."  Then the letters stopped.

After several weeks his worried parents began inquiries, first through letters.  A clue came on August 23 when The New York Times listed the names of soldiers arriving in camps from Cuba suffering from illness, including 104 cases of typhoid fever.  But the list simply noted "William J. Walsh, left in Cuba sick."

Frantic, Patrick Walsh (whom The New York Herald commented "has a comfortable home at No. 76 Edgecombe Avenue") set out to find his son.  Hearing that another transport ship, the Roumania, was arriving at Camp Wikoff on Montauk Point, Long Island on September 4, he went there.  Startlingly, The New York Herald reported "he was there when the transport...arrived but there was not an official who could tell him whether his son was aboard."

Unwilling to give up, he began a bed-by-bed search of the infirmaries.  Two days later he found William, "worn down with Cuban fever and dysentery."  Patrick sent for Ellen and they stayed by his bedside every day for a week.  Finally, "by a great deal of perseverance," as worded by The Herald, on September 13 they obtained permission to have him moved to a New York hospital.

The newspaper reported "At his bedside, in a private ward, his father and mother watched day and night."  The teen died on September 19 and his body was removed to the Walsh home.

William's funeral was held in the house on September 22.  The following day The New York Times reported that the 18-year-old had been buried with military honors in Calvary Cemetery.  "A squad of twelve men from Company D under command of First Sergt. Hugh Rainey accompanied the body to the grave."  But the gesture did not lessen his parents' bitterness.  "Although the doctors say he died of fever, Mr. Walsh declares he died of starvation.  Mr. Walsh says his son lay in Camp Wikoff unidentified and improperly attended for many days."

Patrick and Ellen Walsh's enmity towards the military was only worsened three days after the funeral when Ellen received a response to one of her earlier letters from Lt. Colonel Charles Smart.  It said in part:

Dear Madam:  In reply to your letter inquiring relative to William J. Walsh...you are respectfully informed that the records of this office furnish no information being on the subject of his sickness or whereabouts.

By 1920 when Patrick and Ellen Walsh sold the house the neighborhood was rapidly changing from one of fewer private homes to more and more rooming and boarding houses.  The new owner, M. A. Dreyer, commissioned architect S. F. Oppenheim to renovate the property into what the new Certificate of Occupancy bluntly called a "tenement."  It was no doubt at this time that the stoop was removed and the entrance moved to sidewalk level.

Among the new tenants in 1924 was Mrs. William Phillips who operated her small business from her kitchen.  In October that year she placed an advertisement in New York Age that read: "Mrs. William Phillips, formerly of King's Highway, begs to inform the public that she is again opening up her Catering Business at 76 Edgecombe avenue, N.E. Cor. 138th street, and would be pleased to cater to her many friends, and the public in general.  Outside orders especially solicited."

Much more notable than Mrs. Phillips's catering business was the Mwalimu School run by the multi-talented Manet Harrison Fowler.  She had founded the school in 1928 and in 1932 moved it into No. 76, leasing the entire building.   A 1913 graduate of the Tuskegee Institute, she went on to study visual arts at The Chicago Art Institute and music at the Chicago Musical College and American Conservatory of Music.  She was not only a well-known operatic soprano, but a recognized painter.

She formed the Mwalimu School of African Art, otherwise known as the Mwalimu Center for African Culture, to develop African music and creative art.  Among the instructors here was esteemed Black historian Carter G. Woodson.

The warm contrast of brownstone and brick can be seen in this tax photo from about 1940.  via the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.

Harrison had married educator Stephen Hamilton Fowler in 1915.  Both were natives of Fort Worth, Texas.  The couple had five children.  In April 1950 the funeral of 32-year old Stephen, Jr. was held in the house.  The young man had been ill for some time and succumbed to a heart attack.  In reporting on his death the New York Age added that along with his father he "is also survived by his mother, Manet Harrison Fowler, nationally known musician; two sisters, Rosemarie and Manet, two brothers, Carroll and George."

His sister Manet would go on to become the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D in cultural anthropology in the United States.  George became Commissioner of the New York State Division of Human Rights.

While Manet Harrison Fowler would be better known as a moving force in Black culture, Stephen was highly involved participant in both religious and racial equality movements, including the Baptist church, the NAACP and the Harlem YMCA.  On October 24, 1965 he was found dead in his hotel room in Syracuse, New York.  As President Emeritus of the laymen's council of Mt. Olivet Church, he was attending the Empire State Baptist Convention there.  He had suffered a heart attack.  

Manet Harrison Fowler died in February 1976.   

Whatever was left of George J. Hamilton's Victorian interior details have been stripped out for featureless, dry walled apartments.  Outside the red brick has been painted red and the brownstone painted gray.  To save costs when replacing the windows, the owners opted for flat panes on the corners rather than the original rounded glass.  One of the two surviving houses of Hamilton's 1890 row, its charm manages to survive.

photographs by the author

The Nicholas and Agnes Benziger House - 345 Edgecombe Avenue

In the late 1880's a cable street railway along Tenth Avenue (later Amsterdam Avenue) was extended past 125th Street as far as 155th Street.  Already popular for its refreshing air and bucolic scenery, the district was now much more convenient to the downtown commercial district.  Real estate values soared around 1890 as mansions and villas rose along the tree-lined streets of what would be called Sugar Hill.

On March 5, 1890 Nicholas C. Benziger and his wife, the former Agnes Stoffel, purchased the large lot (62 by 100 feet) at the northwest corner of West 150th Street and Edgecombe Avenue from James and Ella Montieth.  The price was $32,000--a substantial $911,000 today.  And there were conditions attached to the deal:  not only did the Benzigers have to make improvements like installing curbs and sidewalks, but a deed restriction required that only a "first class dwelling" be erected on the site and it could be used only as a private residence for no less than 20 years.

The Benzigers chose German-born architect William Schickel to design their home.  His plans, filed on June 13, 1890, called for a two-story  and attic brick dwelling to cost $25,000; bringing the couple's total outlay for the project up to $1.62 million in today's dollars.

Benziger could well afford it.  He was the head of the New York office of the Swiss-based Benziger Brothers, established in the United States in 1853.  Beginning solely as a Catholic publishing house, the firm additionally began manufacturing and importing church furniture and "sacred vessels," like chalices, in 1864 .

Nicholas had arrived in New York in 1880 at the age of 21 following the death of his cousin, J. N. Adelrich, who had run the New York operation.  He briefly returned to Switzerland in 1883 to marry Agnes.   By now the company had an office in Cincinnati and another in Chicago.

Construction on the residence began in September 1890 and was completed within nine months.  Schickel's eclectic design made ample use of color and shapes--like the variegated ironspot brick trimmed in warm brownstone, an unusual flared mansard roof shingled in clay tiles, and pointy-gabled dormers.  The first floor openings were filled with leaded and stained glass.  A nearly full-width porch, supported by granite pillars, provided awe-inspiring views to the east.

original source unknown

Nicholas and Agnes moved in with their two-year old son, Xavier.  The family would increase within the house with the addition of Anna, Bernard, Rosalie and Alfred.

In the meantime, Benziger continued to grow the family's business.  In 1894 he moved the factory to Brooklyn, and according to the Catalogue of All Catholic Books in English, "There, with greater facilities, they began the production of large goods, such as pulpits, altar-rails, gas and electric fixtures, etc., etc."

With subway service scheduled to reach the area in 1904, plans for apartment buildings were being laid.  It may have been these anticipated changes that prompted Benziger to march into the office of the Tax Commissioners on January 20, 1903 to demand a reduction in his property assessment.  He left disappointed.  The New-York Tribune reported that his "personal assessment of $60,000 remained after his talk with one of the commissioners,  Mr. Benziger not being able to satisfy the commissioner that he should be relieved of any part of it."  

The changes in the neighborhood did not prompt the family to leave; at least not right away.  In 1905 there were four servants living in the house--an egalitarian spread of one American, one French-born, and two Germans.  

But as plans were laid for six-story apartment buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Benziger house, it became too much.  Although they retained possession of the Edgecombe Avenue property, the family relocated to Summit, New Jersey.  The house was initially leased to German-born machinist William Buchler, his wife and three sons.

When a "trifling" fire occurred in the house on January 17, 1909, the occupant was listed by the New York Herald as Joseph P. McHugh.  He shared the house with his business partner, James Slater.  Real estate operators, they were routinely listed as erecting or renovating properties either together, as J. P. McHugh & Co., or individually.

By 1917, when illustrator and cartoonist Harry Grant Dart first appears at the address, the Benzigers may have had more than one tenant--albeit all respectable and well-established.  Dart, who was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1868, was well-known in artistic circles by now.  He is perhaps best known for his fantastic depictions of flying machines and futuristic scenes.  He lived at No. 345 at least through 1918.

Dart created this cover for All Story magazine sometime before 1910.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The family of Harold Nunes was here by February 1919 when the engagement of daughter Edna was announced.  And five months later another resident, Samuel Fletcher declared voluntary bankruptcy.

They were the last of the Benziger tenants.  In August 1920 the property was sold to Dr. Henry W. Lloyd who had operated Dr. Lloyd's Sanitarium a block to the west at No. 8 St. Nicholas Place since 1911.  Lloyd converted the residence as an annex to the hospital, purchasing the abutting lot to the north, erecting five single-story garages in the rear and building a driveway.

Lloyd specialized in treating patients afflicted with "nervous, mental, drug and alcohol" conditions.   While he oversaw the St. Nicholas Place facility, his physician-in-charge of the annex was Dr. Henry W. Rogers.  

Operating both facilities may have proved too cumbersome for Lloyd, and in 1927 he sold No. 345 to Rogers, who promptly renamed it the Dr. Henry Rogers Sanitarium.  By 1932 the name was changed to the Rogers Hospital.

Rogers's mentally-ill patients were, at times, violent and dangerous.  Such was the case in the summer of 1938 when Samuel Kreitzner was transferred here from the Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood, Long Island--except he did not make it.

On June 7 the New York Post ran a headline "Mental Patient Still At Large" and explained that when Kreitzner arrived at Pennsylvania Station during the previous evening's rush hour, he escape from his guard.  Police warned citizens that the 24-year old was "believed to be dangerous."

An advertisement in the New York Evening Post in 1939 described the treatments and amenities.  "Mild mental, nervous cases; elderly difficult people; gardens, sun porches, medical and nursing care."

The hospital took on a case in 1940 that was alien to most psychologists and psychiatrists at the time--gender identity.  Anna Pauline, or "Pauli," Murray was 30-years old and an activist in the equal rights movement.  Earlier that year she and a friend sat in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus and were arrested for violating the state's segregation laws.  She would go on to become involved with the socialist Workers' Defense League and to pursue a career as a civil rights lawyer.

But that was not what landed her at the Roberts Hospital.

When she was arrested for hitchhiking she was wearing the clothing she was most comfortable in--men's apparel.  Murray told the jail matron that she was homosexual and was taking testosterone.  (It was an unusual admittance, for she almost always denied being a lesbian, insisting that she was, in fact, a man.)  It was enough for officials to take her to Bellevue Hospital.

The psychiatrist who interviewed her diagnosed her with schizophrenia and explained her delusion: she believed she was a man.  Allowed one phone call, she contacted a friend who checked her out of Bellevue and brought her to Dr. Rogers's Hospital.  But in the 1940's there was little hope for a sympathetic diagnosis.

According to Murray's biographer, Roslind Rosenberg in her Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray, "Doctors at the Rogers hospital proved no more willing to cooperate in Murray's efforts to become the man she knew herself to be than those elsewhere.  When they released her in mid-March, she had nothing to show for her stay beyond a medical bill for $80, which she could not pay."

The Depression had dealt the hospital a serious blow.  In 1934 the mortgage was refinanced and, finally, in 1942 the Manhattan Savings Bank foreclosed.  Initially converted to a nursery school and kindergarten, early in 1950 it became the Edgecombe Hotel.

An advertisement in The New York Age, one of the city's leading Black community newspapers, described the hotel on April 8, 1950 as "Beautifully decorated, new modern furniture.  Complete hotel service.  Radio and Telephone in every room.  Suburban Atmosphere on Sugar Hill."  The ad noted "special rates to permanents."

But the once-refined neighborhood suffered in the second half of the 20th century.  The hotel was the scene of a terrifying incident on the night of January 28, 1976.  The New York Times reported "Police Officer Edward Calderone interrupted an attempted holdup of a desk clerk at the Edgecombe Hotel, 345 Edgecombe Avenue.  After one of two armed men fired two shots at him that missed, the officer returning the fire, hit one suspect twice in the right leg."  Neither of the suspects were seriously injured and both were arrested.

The advertisement for the hotel in the N.Y. Amsterdam News on December 5, 1980 no longer boasted of beautiful decorations and modern furniture.  Instead it merely touted "air conditioning, TV, ice cubes."  Six years later another attraction had been added:  adult movies.

Change came in 1989 when the Broadway Housing Development Fund Company purchased the property.  A not-for-profit organization, it converted the residence to permanent housing for the homeless.  The unique tiled mansard and the copper dormers were restored in 1998 with private and public funds.  The meticulous restoration won a Victorian Society in America preservation award in 2002.

photographs by the author