The Max and Betty Greene Mansion - 53 East 91st Street

photograph by Jim Henderson

Andrew Carnegie, perhaps, surprised his peers when he broke ground in 1899 for a sumptuous palace surrounded by gardens on Fifth Avenue between 91st and 92nd Streets, at least 20 blocks above the northern fringe of the mansion district.  Anticipating the neighborhood's transformation from undeveloped plots and modest houses into one of the most exclusive residential districts in the city, Max and Betty Greene began buying up property.  On a single day, for instance, on May 2, 1903, the Record & Guide reported that Max had purchased the property at 53 East 91st Street, and Betty had bought two vintage houses across the street at 56 and 58 East 91st Street.

In 1907, the couple hired architect Edward I. Shire to alter No. 53 and the abutting house at 55 East 91st Street into a single structure.  Perhaps drawing inspiration from the Carnegie mansion one-and-a-half blocks away at 2 East 91st Street, Shire designed the Greenes' 32-foot-wide home in the neo-Georgian style.  

Completed in 1908, the 14-room mansion was faced in red brick (laid in a unique version of running bond) and trimmed in marble.  A sweeping stoop spilled from the doorway, which was flanked by leaded sidelights and crowned with an ornate fanlight.  The stepped lintels of the parlor floor, the layered keystones of the third, and the regal balustrade atop the cornice were all hallmarks of the style.  Less expected, however, was the picturesque oriel at the second floor, with its multi-paned sashes.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Six years after moving in, Max and Betty Greene hired architect Herbert M. Baer to enlarge the house by adding a single-story extension to the rear.  They sold the mansion to George Oliver May and and his wife, the former Edith Mary Slocome, sometime before 1925.

Both George and Edith were born in England in 1875.  They were married in Exeter, England on New Years Day 1902.  That year George was made a partner in Jones, Caesar & Co. (later Price Waterhouse & Co.) and the couple moved to New York City.  George became a senior partner in Price Waterhouse in 1911.

During the first World War, George was an official within the United States Treasury Department and the War Trade Board.  When the family moved into 53 East 91st Street, he was still a senior partner at Price Waterhouse.  He and Edith had three children: Edith Claire, born in 1906; Oliver, born in 1908; and Mary Barbara, who arrived four years later.  The family's country home, Brimley, was in Southport, Connecticut.

George Oliver May, via the American Accounting Association

In addition to his pastime of studying history and linguistics, George collected old English silver.  Edith was an amateur horticulturist and the Connecticut estate gave her ample opportunity to indulge in her hobby.  The New York Times said that she was "a frequent exhibitor in local and national flower shows."

Edith Claire was introduced to society in the winter season of 1925-26.  Among the events was a luncheon her mother hosted at Pierre's for 53 of "this and last season's débutantes," according to The New York Times on December 5, 1925.  The surnames of the socially elite young women in the room included Van Rensselaer, Phipps, Belmont, Flagler, Fahnestock, Gallatin, and Whitney.

Edith Claire's engagement to Burton Wakeman Taylor in February 1928 was "of interest to a wide circle of friends abroad as well as here," as described by The New York Times.  The following year, on May 12, 1929, the newspaper reported that the "details have been completed" for the wedding.  The ceremony would be held in Trinity Church in Southport, Connecticut on June 1.  The article said that Mary Barbara would be maid of honor and the reception would be held "at Brimley, the country home of Mr. and Mrs. May in Southport."

Oliver May graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1930.  Mary Barbara's debut into society came in the winter social season of 1931-32.  

In February 1932, Edith May was hospitalized and she died there on February 15.  Her funeral was held in Trinity Church in Southport, where Edith Claire had been married three years earlier.

The eight-over-eight double-hung windows of the upper floors survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On October 3, 1944, The New York Times reported that George Oliver May had sold 53 East 91st Street to Phil Baker, "a stage and radio star."  Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1896, Baker began his career in vaudeville at the age of 19.  By the time he and his actress wife, Irmgard, purchased the East 91st Street mansion, he was a household name.  Baker was the host of the radio game show Take it or Leave It, had his own radio series The Armour Jester, and appeared in the musical The Gang's All Here with Carmen Miranda in 1943.

Phil Baker, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Baker was formerly married to silent movie actress Peggy Cartright, who had a leading role in the Our Gang series before talkies.  The couple, who had three children together, were divorced in 1941.

In March 1946, a journalist from The New York Times visited Phil Baker here.  In describing the mansion, he commented, "A Hollywood set pales into drab insignificance by comparison."  During the interview, Baker told him that his success in radio and his magnificent residence "should make me a very happy man, but I'm not."  He confessed, "I would like to be an actor...I love the radio very much, and being a quiz master is out of this world; you meet every shade of person.  But I miss the theater."

And so, it was not surprising that later that year, in September, Baker gave a one-year lease to the mansion to the Provisional Government of the Republic of France.  The New York Times reported, "The Ambassador's staff and members of his family expect to arrive in New York About Sept. 23 to take up residence there."

On February 14, 1948, Winthrop Rockefeller, son of financier John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, married actress Jievute "Bobo" Paulekiute.  Their son, Winthrop Paul, was born on September 17, 1948, and two years later the couple separated.  John A. Kirk, in his Winthrop Rockefeller, From New Yorker to Arkasawyer, 1912-1956, writes that Rockefeller leased 53 East 91st Street for Bobo and his son "from April 6 through to the end of September [1950]" for $7,000.  The figure would translate to $91,200 in 2026.  Kirk writes, "He also offered to pay for Win Paul's nurse, his medical expenses, and his bodyguard."

The following year, in March 1951, Phil Baker sold 53 East 91st Street to Oscar and Babette Block Serlin.  Baker and Serlin assuredly knew one another from the entertainment business.

Oscar Serlin was born in 1901 in Poland and arrived in the United States at the age of nine.  He began producing plays and his first Broadway production was the 1929 comedy Broken Dishes.   It was not only his Broadway debut, but that of his star, the fledgling actress Bette Davis.

Newcomer Bette Davis and Donald Meek on stage in Oscar Serlin's 1929 Broken Dishes.  Theatre Magazine, January 1930 (copyright expired)

Serlin's great success came with Life With Father, which opened in 1939 and became the longest running Broadway show of all time until The Phantom of the Opera.  (Life With Father still holds the title of the longest running non-musical play on Broadway.)  In 1932 Serlin signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and headed that studio's Eastern talent department for five years.  The New York Times would later say, "He was credited with sending Cary Grant, Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Lamour to Hollywood, and had participated in the hunt for a Scarlett O'Hara for the film version of 'Gone with the Wind.'"  Oscar retired in 1951, the year he and Babette purchased 53 East 91st Street.  

Following what The New York Times called "a long illness," Oscar Serlin died in the East 91st Street house on February 27, 1971 at the age of 70.  

At the time, the Dalton School had occupied the mansion next door at 61 East 91st Street for seven years.  In 1978, the institution acquired 53 East 91st Street and combined the two buildings internally.  Two additional floors were added to the joined structures.   The school continues to occupy the property.

photograph by Jim Henderson

The 1929 Cone Export Co. Building - 57-59 Worth Street

 

During the second half of the 19th century, the district known today as Tribeca filled with handsome loft and store buildings designed for the dry goods trade.  Faced in marble, cast iron, or sandstone, they almost always featured a cast iron storefront.  A noticeable exception, however, was the six-story building at 57-59 Worth Street, at the northwest corner of Church Street.  Occupied by the Cone Export and Commission Company, its architect had apparently not aspired to commercial beauty.  The utilitarian, brick-faced factory and store might have been described as uninspired.

In 1927 the building at 57-59 Worth Street was prepared for demolition.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

In 1927 the Cone Export Company demolished its old building and hired architect Edward I. Shire to design a modern replacement.  If its predecessor had not been "an ornament to the street," in the vernacular of architectural critics, Shire's new design would correct that.  In an era of Art Deco jazziness, the architect looked to the Italian Renaissance for inspiration.  

As the nine-story building neared completion on June 23, 1928, The Evening Post called it the "latest improvement for the wholesale dry goods district," saying, "It has been designed in the early Florentine Renaissance period style of architecture by Edward I. Shire."   A two-story rusticated base upheld an unadorned, six-story midsection.  Each set of paired openings on the top floor sat within a slightly recessed arch, emphasized by a stone eyebrow.  They, along with the ornamental corbel table that supported the cornice, harkened to 16th century Italy.

The Evening Post noted, "The stories will be unusually high, providing excellent light and ventilation, and the top floor will have a clear height of about twenty-two feet, allowing for a mezzanine story if desired."  The building was opened on February 1, 1929, but even before construction was completed, it had been  nearly fully rented.  The Cone Export Company would occupy the basement through third floors.  Among the tenants were A. S. Haight & Co., which rented the fourth floor; Ely & Walker Dry goods which took the fifth; and Chatham Manufacturing Company, which signed a lease for the sixth.  

Photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Cone Export Company was the selling arm of the Proximity Mfg. Co. of Greensboro, North Carolina.  On October 14, 1920, Mill News explained, "It is through this department that Proximity and White Oak denims are sold all over the world."  The firm was founded by Caesar Cone and operated three cotton mills, textile factories, and print works there.

A. S. Haight & Co. manufactured underwear.  In 1932 the firm hired Rogers Meyer, a 24-year-old graduate of the University of Virginia as a traveling salesman.  Meyer was progressive minded.  At a time when most salesmen took trains to their clients, The New York Sun said he "made frequent trips to the Middle West and North West...using airplanes as a means of transportation whenever possible."  That preference ended tragically when the plane he was on crashed into the San Francisco Bay in February 1937.  The 29-year-old left a widow and 19-month-old baby girl.

Working for the Chatham Manufacturing Company at the time was 27-year-old Curtiss Howard, the firm's assistant advertising manager.  In 1942, following America's entry into World War II, he left his job to join the Coast Guard even though, he explained later, "His only previous seafaring experience had been confined to yachting in Long Island Sound."  He would return to New York a war hero.

On December 14, 1944, the Navy announced that Lt. Howard had been the navigator of the cutter Eastwind off the coast of Greenland.  The vessel located the German warship Externsteine "caught fast in the ice."  After what The New York Sun called "a few salvoes from the Eastwind's guns," the German crew surrendered.  Using the Externsteine's own mines, the American crew blasted the ship free.  

Lt. Curtiss Howard boarded the Externsteine and supervised its 700 mile voyage to Reykjavik.  The New York Sun reported that, according to the Third Naval district headquarters, "he was the first American officer in this war, so far as they knew, who had been placed in command of a captured enemy ship." 

On July 5, 1956, The New York Times announced, "The American Telephone and Telegraph Company has leased the entire building at 59 Worth Street from Cone Mills, Inc., which recently moved to 1440 Broadway."  The firm occupied the property for six years before it was sold to the New York  Law School in 1962.  Renovations completed the following year transformed the former offices to classrooms, a law library, lounges, and other school-related facilities.

The New York Law School was chartered in 1891 by a group of Columbia Law School faculty members.  Within a year, it had became the second largest law school in the country.

Events within the new home of the New York Law School often reflected the changing times and the issues of the day.  On April 11, 1979, Judge Bruce McM. Wright of Criminal Court released Jerome Singleton, charged with attempted murder, without bail.  The New York Times said the decision "has created a furor" and said, "The judge, who is black, has accused the Police Department of racism."

On April 19, The New York Times reported, "Fourteen speakers at a crowded news conference held at Judge Wright's alma mater, the New York Law School, at 57 Worth Street, praised the judge for following the Constitution and only using bail to insure a defendant's presence for trial."

In 1982, the New York Law School implemented an innovative, ten-week course for teenagers.  On April 4, The New York Times reported, "students at Eastern District High School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn have been studying divorce law, child-custody rights, tenants' rights and abortion in a social studies class called 'Citizen and the Law.'  Attendance is high, and interest keen."

photograph by Jim Henderson

A bizarre incident occurred here in 1986.  Martin Sostre was described by The New York Times as "a national symbol of prisoners' rights in the 1960's and 70's."  During his 20-year prison term, which ended in 1975, he became a Black Muslim and diligently studied law.  While incarcerated, said the newspaper, he "won a series of court battles that established inmates' rights to practice religion, receive uncensored mail and obtain certain minimum conditions in solitary confinement."

In 1984 Sostre was accused of attempted murder when he shot a tenant in the Washington heights building where he worked as assistant manager.  He was on the run for two years before an attorney spotted the 63-year-old activist pouring over legal tomes in the library of the New York Law School at 8:00 on the evening of May 22.  The lawyer quietly notified police, who arrived and arrested Sostre.

Edward I. Shire's handsome Italian commercial palazzo remains essentially unchanged as it nears the century mark.

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The Seligman House -- No. 126 East 74th Street

Developer Warren Beeman’s ambitious project of 28 brownstone rowhouses on East 74^th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues would take four years to complete.  Begun in 1871, they were designed by architect John G. Prague in the ubiquitous Italianate style.  To fit so many homes onto the block, Beeman skimped on their width—they were 18.9 feet wide as compared to the more expected 20 feet.

Among the row was No. 126 East 74^th Street.  Home to well-to-do owners from its completion in 1875, it was owned by Davis Rosenberg in 1905.  The neighborhood to the west had become highly exclusive as the mansions of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens lined Fifth Avenue.  By now the affluent residential character had spread east.  Rosenberg sold the house that year in June to Nathaniel A. Campbell and his wife, Elizabeth. 

Campbell was involved in real estate and more than once included Selena M. Campbell in the deals.  It is probable that the two were related.  Early in 1910 Selena (whose name was often spelled Selina in newspapers) sold her home at No. 56 East 69^th Street and purchased No. 126 East 74^th Street from Nathaniel and Elizabeth Campbell.  The New-York Tribune made note of her $10,000 mortgage—around $240,000 today.

Wealthy and unmarried, Selena M. Campbell devoted her time to charitable causes.  When she moved into No. 126 she had been Chairman of Industrial School No. 1 on East 109^th Street for several years.  The purpose of the school was the “Education of poor children not provided for by the public schools.”

She was also First Vice-President of the Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless.  When it hosted a fund-raising bazaar on November 21, 1913 The Sun reported that “The society takes care of about 208 derelict children and the bazaar was held to wipe out a debt of $74,000 incurred during the last year, which is the seventy-ninth of the society’s work.”

Before Selena moved into the house she renovated the outdated Victorian interiors.  On April 16, 1910 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that she had give E. Van Houten the contract to make “interior changes” to the house.

Selena Campbell was tireless in her efforts to improve the lot of the poor.  On February 1, 1915 she spoke at a meeting of the Presbyterian union at the Hotel Savoy.  The issue at hand was the ineffective operation of the Almshouse.  Prior to the speeches, 70 children from the Woodycrest Home for the Friendless, of which she was an officer, “went through a military drill” for the assemblage.

By 1921 the 74^th Street house was owned by Theodore Stanfield and his wife, Cora Leopold Stanfield.  Cora had been a leader in the New York Kindergarten Association since graduating from Teachers College in 1902.  She was also highly active in the Children’s Charitable Union.

Now 40 years old, Cora became ill and after a brief illness died on January 22, 1921 in the Nursery and Children’s Hospital.  The New York Times mentioned that “She had herself taught for several years in the kindergartens of the city schools and had urged the founding of a children’s theatre where classics suitable for young audiences could be performed.”

Theodore was the Managing Director of the American Metal Company and he, too, was involved with notable causes.  That year he served as Chairman of the Library and Entertainment Committee of the New York Institution for Improved Instruction of Deaf Mutes.  He was a life member of the American Peace Society and a member of the Williamstown Institute of Politics.

Nineteen months after Cora’s death, on July 5, 1922, he married Suzette M. Stanfield.  Now retired, in 1923 The New York Times said “as a hobby [he] devotes a considerable portion of each year to analysis of world conditions.”

On July 9, 1917 the engagement of Eustace Seligman to Maud Jaretzki had been made public.  Seligman was the son of esteemed Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman of Columbia University.  Educated at Amherst College, Harvard Law School and Columbia, the young attorney practiced law with Sullivan and Cromwell.  During World War I he served as Judge Advocate, trying cases of conscientious objectors.

In 1925 the Seligmans purchased the house from the Stanfields.  (Theodore Stanfield, incidentally, would suffer a nervous breakdown two years later and spend the rest of his life institutionalized.)

Like Selena Campbell, the new owners set out to modernize their dated home.  But the Seligman renovations would go far behind “interior changes.”  Architect Edward I. Shire was hired to convert the old brownstone into a modern upscale dwelling.

A decade earlier Frederick Junius Sterner made his mark on New York architecture by transforming Victorian brownstones into Mediterranean and Tudor fantasies.  Now Shire followed his lead and presented the Seligmans with a stucco-covered Mediterranean villa.

With the stoop removed, the entrance was now at street level.  Between the service entrance and the main door a window was guarded by an ornate Spanish-style wrought iron grill.  The second floor featured a Doric loggia with iron railings and three sets of French doors.  The upper openings were ornamented with quaint wooden shutters, and two sloping Spanish-tiled roofs completed the charming charade.

The house was photographed on March 31, 1927.  Note the side window at the third floor.  photograph by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWWVPB30&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631

Inside Shire continued the motif with twisted wrought iron fixtures and balusters, stuccoed walls, heavy exposed beams and baronial fireplaces.

Although the Seligmans' rear garden was small, it was a source of pride to Maude.  Annually she opened it to the public for the Garden Tour for the benefit of the School Nature League.  Like Selena Campbell, Maude was less interested in glamorous dinners and dances than in social reform and charitable works.  Her teas and receptions most often were in support of a worthy cause.

Maude Seligman opened her pretty garden once a year for charity -- photograph by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWWVPB30&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631 

Such was the case in November 1936 when “a number of prominent women” met in the house to discuss slum clearance, according to The Times.  Maude was an avid supporter of public housing projects as a means of providing dignified homes for the poor and eliminating the crime and disease-ridden tenements.  Other meetings Maude hosted in the house in the 1940s concerned aid to China and to Poland. 

Well-chosen antiques complimented the Southern European-inspired interiors.   photograph by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWWVPB30&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631

On July 20, 1939 200 people filed into the house for the funeral of Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman.  The 78-year old economist was praised as a “counselor to cities, States and the United States” and was called “a leader in the field of economic relations.” 

In March 1953 Eustace Seligman’s mother suffered a fatal heart attack in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Her funeral, too, was held in the 74^th Street house.

The Seligmans remained in the home at least through the 1950s.  Today it is remarkably unchanged.  Even the original wooden shutters are intact as is the Spanish grill over the first floor window.  It remains a single family home.

non-historic photographs by the author