The Lost Daniel Ransom House - 16 West 21st Street

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Daniel Ransom and his brother, Warren A., operated the boot and shoe business W. A. Ransom & Co.  Daniel and his family lived at 152 Second Avenue when an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune on March 20, 1851:

For Sale--the new 3-story and attic house, with freestone front, 16 West Twenty-first-st. 25 by 65 feet, built in the very best manner, and can be immediately occupied.

The newly-built residence was similar to the opulent homes being constructed on Fifth Avenue, just steps to the east.  The ornate cast iron area and stoop railings morphed to a full-width cast iron balcony at the parlor level.  The classical pediment above the arched, double-doored entrance was supported by foliate brackets.  Handsome molded lintels above the segmentally arched openings sat upon scrolled brackets.

Daniel Ransom married Esther A. Jones in 1842.  When they moved into 16 West 21st street, they had three children:  Helen, Frank, and Kate, who were eight, seven and four years old respectively.

In 1864, Daniel Ransom fell ill.  He died at the age of 51 on April 30.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 2.

In an interesting turn of events, five years later the widow and her brother-in-law, Esther and Warren A. Ransom, were married.  Warren's wife, Mary Elizabeth Leavitt, had died in 1855.  Esther and Daniel's children were still unmarried and living in the house when their mother and uncle wedded.

The Ransom family's social position was reflected in Helen's, Frank's and Kate Ransom's being invited to the wedding of the Spanish Minister, Señor Mauritio Lopez Roberts to Angela Terre on November 28, 1870.  Others in the church that afternoon were the Ministers of Russia, Prussia, Portugal and Italy, the French Charge d'Affaires and high-level socialites with surnames like Fowler, Hewitt, Skidmore, and Sherman.

The following year, Helen was married to Celestin Astoin and the couple headed to Europe.  Tragically, Helen's honeymoon voyage turned to grief.  The 33-year-old groom died on  the steamer Pereire on October 25.  Helen arrived home with the body a month later and his funeral was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street.

(When Helen's father-in-law, Felix Astoin, died in January 1884, he left her a substantial amount of Manhattan real estate, including the famous Knickerbocker Cottage on Sixth Avenue.)

Ironically, Kate suffered a similar fate.  She married William Lowndes on May 22, 1875.  Less than four years later, on April 23, 1879, William died at the age of 35.  Kate moved back into her family's 21st Street home.

Kate Ransom Lowndes spent the summer of 1891 at the exclusive Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, New York.  She died there at the age of 44 on August 17.   

By the time of Kate's funeral, Warren A. Ransom had retired.  Possibly a victim of a stroke, he was described by The New York Times as an invalid.  

The family's home was, by now, hemmed in by commercial buildings.  Stubbornly resisting the northward migration of their neighboring millionaires, the Ransoms' house was an anachronism of a more refined era.  Possibly because of  those changes, Kate's funeral was not held in the house.

Warren A. Ransom died at the age of 79 in the West 21st Street house on March 26, 1900, and his funeral was held in the Church of the Holy Communion on March 28.

Now only Esther and Frank, who never married, occupied the vintage residence.  Esther died here on October 15, 1903 at the age of 80.  Her funeral, too, was held in the Church of the Holy Communion.

Six decades after the family moved in, the last Ransom died on April 27, 1912.  Frank J. Ransom left an estate equal to about $14.6 million in 2025 money.  The New York Times said, "He was a bachelor and left no near relatives."  He left much of his fortune to institutions, like the St. Luke's, Roosevelt, and New York hospitals, and $200,000 to the Church of Holy Communion.  

He was generous to his domestic staff.  His coachman, Thomas Hart, and Francis Dawson, "who worked around his house," both received $1,000 (about $32,400 today).  Ransom left the same amount to two maids, Julia Cunningham and Maggie Burke; and $500 and $25,000 in trust each to servants Sabrina McGrath and Bessie Kane.

Two years later, on March 22, 1914, The New York Times reported that the Frank J. Ransom estate had sold 16 West 21st Street, mentioning that it, "has been in the family ownership since 1851."  L. Napoleon Levy paid $20,000 for the property, about $629,000 today.

The house was converted to the headquarters of the Waistmakers' and Dressmakers' Union.  By 1919 the name was changed to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.  During a sweeping labor strike, on February 11 that year, the New-York Tribune reported, "A bank for the payment of strike benefits to 20,000 striking dress and waist workers is to be opened to-day at 16 West Twenty-first Street."   

In the 1920s, other unions joined the ILGWU in the house.  On December 19, 1929, The Daily Worker reported, "A pre-convention membership meeting of the New York District of the National Textile Workers Union will be held this evening at 8 o'clock at 16 West 21st St."

The stoop was removed by the time this photo was taken in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

All of the organizations were closely scrutinized by Congress's Special Committee on Un-American Activities.  In 1938, the Workers' International Relief was in its crosshairs.  The Committee noted that the group was founded in 1921 "on Lenin's suggestion."

In 1942, the venerable Ransom residence was demolished, replaced with a one-story truck garage.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

That building was replaced in 2005 with a 14-story apartment building.

Where Grand Buildings were Born -- 28 East 21st Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1871, architect Richard Morris Hunt purchased the Ango-Italianate-style, brownstone-clad house 28 East 21st Street. Built around 1846, the mansion rose four floors over an English basement.  The rusticated parlor-level base featured three arched openings and a broad set of entrance steps.  Classical pediments graced the second story windows and heavy brackets supported the no-nonsense cornice.

Here the architect established his studio and office.  Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he had already received important commissions from wealthy New Yorkers and that year had completed his own Newport summer cottage.

Behind the quiet brownstone facade, some of the most impressive buildings in America were conceived -- photo by Alice Lum

Among the first of Hunt’s designs to come from the East 21st Street studio was the New-York Tribune Building, begun in 1873—one of the city’s first skyscrapers.  Hunt would go on toy design masterful mansions along Fifth Avenue and in Newport for families like the Vanderbilts, Astors, Belmonts and Goelets.  He would, additionally, be responsible for churches like the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, North Carolina; academic structures for Yale University and the United States Military Academy; and the base of the Statue of Liberty.

In 1878, Hunt founded The Society of Decorative Arts to provide art classes for "respectable" women.  The society was operated from the East 21st Street mansion.  The 1887 guidebook How to Know New York City mentioned the Society’s “classes, library and sales-rooms,” and a few years later, in 1893, King’s Handbook of New York City said it, “has classes in fine needle-work, china-painting, fan-painting, water-colors, and other branches of art; and aims to thoroughly train women, each in one kind of decorative art.”

The heavy double entrance doors were, no doubt, part of the 1896 re-do -- photo by Alice Lum

The “sales-rooms” mentioned in the guidebook sold decorative objects created by the students.  But nothing amateurish was offered to the discriminating women who shopped here.  In order for a hand-painted chocolate set or Japanese fan to make it to the sales floor, it had to pass inspection by a “committee of admission.”

Annually, the Society would put on its highly-anticipated Easter Sale.  On April 11, 1886, The New York Times reported that among items offered would be “many charming specimens of needlework.  There will be also a variety of chairs, cushions, curtains, and bedspreads, and many other novelties for Easter gifts.”

The Easter Sale of 1892 reflected the Society’s increased selection of courses.  There were now “Hungarian embroidery work” and a “fine display of china painted by the students.”  A reporter noted, “The china display has attracted much attention, and the pieces are as a general thing remarkably well arranged.”

There were a “number of pieces of ribbon work set in Louis XVI screens,” deemed “particularly fine” by The New York Times critic, and a number of “handsome” hand-painted fans, as well as lamp shades, cushions, and sofa pillows.

The modern housewife could economically accessorize her home with the latest in domestic fashion by attending the Society sales.

Richard Morris Hunt died in 1895.  He had not only produced monumental structures like the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he had founded the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society.

photo by Alice Lum

Hunt’s son, Richard Howland Hunt, took over the business.  The year after her husband’s death, Catherine Clinton Howland Hunt filed for alterations to the East 21st Street house, at a cost of $5000.  It was probably during this renovation that the distinctive late 19th century entrance doors were installed.

Classic brownstone Italianate pediments cap the windows.  The diamond-panes were part of the 1896 update -- photo by Alice Lum

Joseph Howland Hunt joined his brother in the business in 1901, forming Hunt & Hunt architects.  From East 21st Street they would design structures such as the 69th Regiment Armory and George W. Vanderbilt’s twin marble mansions on Fifth Avenue at 51st Street.

Richard H. Hunt's studio in 1915 -- photo by The Architectural League (copyright expired)

After Joseph’s death in 1924, the office closed.  The house was briefly owned by Fred H. Albee and Frederick G. Elton before being purchased by the American Rehabilitation Committee, Inc.

Little has changed on East 21st Street since the 1950s -- photo NYPL Collection

Although in the mid-20th century the mansion was home to the bookbinder supplies firm, Griffin, Campbell, Hayes, Walsh, Inc., no major alterations were made to the façade.  Then in 1980 it was converted to apartments, two to a floor.  Ten years later it was again converted to eight cooperative apartments, retaining the surviving interior details like mantles and moldings.

The original iron railings have been lost and the brownstone stoop could use repair; but the house at No. 28 E 21st survives remarkably intact -- photo by Alice Lum

The unassuming brownstone is squashed between two late 19th century loft buildings but otherwise looks little changed.  Within its walls some of America's grandest structures were born.