The Fred F. French Company's 1917 370 Central Park West

 
 

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Fred Fillmore French founded the Fred F. French Company in 1910 when he was just 27 years old.  At the time, the firm consisted of himself and a boy whom he paid $15 a week.  He succeeded in the real estate business.  In 1917, just seven years after starting out, he formed the 370 Central Park West Company, and filed plans on March 17 for a “six-story elevator apartment” on the southwest corner of Central Park West and 97^th Street.  The property cost $150,000 and construction would add another $300,000, bringing the total outlay for the project to about $11 million in 2025 terms.
 
The Fred F. French Company’s architects designed a charming and romantic whimsy that foretold the neo-Tudor craze that would sweep the nation in the coming decade.  By inserting deep light courts along 97^th Street, they created the feel of a Shakespearean village on a modern scale.  The six stories of “common brick,” were enhanced with Tudor half-timbering, sections of rough plaster, and a mountainscape of gables.
 
The Fred F. French Company wasted no time in marketing the project.  An advertisement in The New York Times on July 24, 1917 read:
 

The apartment house unique, now under construction, S.W. corner 97^th St.  An old fashioned touch to a new fashioned home.  Suites 2 to 7 rooms $650 to $1800.  French Management Corporation.

 
The highest-end rent would equal $3,500 per month in today’s money.
 
Construction was completed within seven months.  Some of the earliest tenants were affected by the war raging in Europe.  On October 6, U.S. Navy Ensign Donald Stewart Tuttle married Eleanor Church Gould in Lyons Falls, New York while on a four-day furlough from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  The Sun mentioned, “the young couple started by automobile for New York, where they will be at home after November 1 at 370 Central Park West.”
 
Shortly after Helen Windsor Wilson, the widow of David H. Wilson, moved into 370 Central Park West with her son, Stafford Clay, the 25-year-old man was deployed to the battlefront with the 107^th Infantry.  Tragically, Stafford Clay Wilson was killed in battle near Peronne, France on September 29, 1918.
 
Another tragedy occurred here seven months later.  John A. Goodwin, a real estate operator, occupied an apartment with his wife Eleanor.  Following the sudden death of his father early in 1919, a traumatized Goodwin suffered a nervous breakdown.  Like most well-heeled couples at the time, the Goodwins had separate bedrooms.  Eleanor awoke during the night of April 15 to discover a horrific scene.  The New-York Tribune reported that Goodwin “committed suicide…by hanging himself from the hinge of his bedroom door.”
 
One of the most colorful residents of 370 Central Park West was Maud L. Ceballos, an actress whose stage name was Mona Desmond, “the Dresden China Doll.”  She had had a remarkable past.  In 1903 she was taken to police headquarters from a Chicago club following a shooting.  There she and her escort gave fictitious names.  

The following year she eloped with J. Reed Fuller, a Chicago businessman.  The Sun remarked, “His disappearance after their marriage caused considerable comment.”  That “disappearance” resulted in divorce.  A year later she was named in the divorce suit of Edna May and Fred Titus. 
 

An early cabinet card of Mona Desmond. (copyright expired)

In August 1910, Maud sued Clifford R. Hendrix for breach of promise.  She alleged “he had for three or four years kept on promising to marry me as soon as I got a divorce from my first husband, Mr. Fuller.”  She lost that suit.
 
Maud later married her dancing partner, Larry Ceballos.  Shortly after their divorce in August 1919, she moved into an apartment at 370 Central Park West.  Her name was back in the newspapers on May 8, 1920 when she once again sued Clifford R. Hendrix—this time on his wedding day.  Her $100,000 suit accused him of a second breach of promise.  Maud said he had paid for her divorce and further alleged that he had promised to marry her on August 16, 1919.  At the time, she said, he was in the process of building a house for them in Larchmont, New York.  When Hendrix’s bride, Eugenia Terry received word of the filing, she scoffed, “Some women seem to think they have a lien on men who take them out to tea.”
 
Hendrix told a reporter, “I never promised to marry Miss Ceballos nor did I ever entertain the idea of so doing.  I knew her in my bachelor days, that is all.  She has been married and has been freed.”
 
While she was at it, Maud sued her broker, Frederick B. Florian on December 7, 1921.  She claimed she had given him, “between $6,000 and $7,000 to invest for her,” according to the New York Herald, “and could not get him to return the money.”
 
Maud’s cause against Clifford R. Hendrix began on October 31, 1922.  She was seriously grilled by the defense team about her history of lawsuits and love affairs.  Two days later, the New-York Herald reported she had dropped the charges.  Her attorney, James M. Fisk, explained that the cross-examination had made her so nervous that it was “physically impossible for her to go on with the case.  She just cannot submit to any further examination,” he said.
 
Less controversial were the several artistic tenants in 370 Central Park West.  In 1921, Frederic Warren’s apartment doubled as his studio where he taught operatic voice.  His advertisements offered, “Full preparation for the concert and operatic stage.”
 
Among his neighbors was Helena Marsh, a contralto with the Metropolitan Opera Company.  When she returned home from the theater just before midnight on September 26, 1921, she found her door open, but barricaded from within.  The New-York Tribune reported, “She called a policeman, who with the aid of the elevator boy, forced the door in.”  The burglar had escaped through a window.  “Miss Marsh found her apartment in ruins, $400 in cash and about $5,000 worth of jewelry stolen,” said the article. 

Helena Marsh (original source unknown)

Living in what the New-York Tribune described as “an expensively furnished apartment” at the time was Jacques Roberto Cibrario, a Soviet citizen and “purchasing agent in America for the Russian Soviet government of motion picture machinery and films.”  He was given the job of purchasing American-made films and film-making equipment in 1919 by the Soviet Department of Public Information.  The materials were to be used “in making pictures for the education of the peasants in Communistic doctrine.”  The New-York Tribune explained, “the Soviet rulers had been much handicapped by inability to reach the peasantry through ordinary educational propaganda, since only a small proportion of the public could read.”
 
But now in America and with a fortune in the National City Bank supplied by the Soviet Government, Cibrario seems to have been enjoying the capitalistic lifestyle.  On September 1, 1921, he was indicted on four counts of grand larceny “in connection with the swindling of a good part of $1,000,000 advanced by the Soviets to him for the purchase of motion picture apparatus and films,” said the New York Herald.
 

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The building continued to attract musical and artistic types.  In 1926 Herman Neuman had his studio here.  The wide-ranging musician advertised, “accompanist, vocal coach, piano,” and “Musical Director Radio WNYC.”
 
Operatic and concert tenor and conductor John Hand lived here in 1931 with his wife, the former Ruth Worman.  That year he founded the New York Light Opera Guild to introduce young singers to the press and public.  The Hands’ apartment now doubled as the Guild’s administrative office and de facto audition hall.  On June 24, 1933, The New York Sun explained, “This is an educational and cultural institution for the advancement of American singers, and the stranger in New York, looking for an outlet for his talents, could find no better.”
 
Nine years later, on April 16, 1942, the Kingston Daily Freeman announced that the New York Light Opera Guild would stage Fatinitz early that June.  The article noted, “Preliminary hearings are now being conducted at headquarters, 370 Central Park West, where applications for auditions should be made.”  John Hand and his wife were still living here on October 11, 1956 when the 70-year-old suffered a fatal heart attack.
 
Professor of Economics at Columbia University Arthur F. Burns and his wife lived here in the 1950s.  Born in Stanislau, Austria in 1904, he graduated from Columbia University in 1925, and received his Ph.D. there in 1934.  He had added to his responsibilities in 1945 when he became research director of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
 

image via compass.com

While many of the low-rise buildings along Central Park West were replaced in the 20^th century by soaring apartments, Fred F. French’s picturesque 370 Central Park West survived unscathed, a charming touch of old England among its Art Deco neighbors.

Murder at "The Monastery"-- No. 22 West 77th Street

The West 77^th Street block between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue was especially alluring to apartment building developers.  Its location across from the sprawling Manhattan Square and the grounds of the American Museum of Natural History assured that no high structures would ever be built to obstruct the abundant natural light.

On May 7, 1921 the New-York Tribune announced that Fred F. French had formed 22 West Seventy-seventh Street, Inc., and purchased the plot at Nos. 22 and 24 West 77^th Street.  The newspaper noted that the property was “bought for flat improvement.”

The Fred F. French Co. was an all-in-one development concern.  It handled every step of the real estate process from buying the property, designing the structure, constructing it and finally managing the completed building.  And the firm wasted no time with its newest property.  Just five days later plans were filed for “a six story apartment house” with an estimated cost of $300,000—in the neighborhood of $4 million in 2016.

Eager residents did not wait for the building to be completed before sign leases.  By the end of October Fred F. French had rented several of the apartments.  The finished six story building contained 42 apartments “in suites of one, two, three and four rooms.”  Fred F. French had designed a quaint brick-faced neo-Tudor structure with storybook half-timbering, pointed gables and picturesque rough-cut stonework around the arched entrance.

The New York Times (while getting the architectural style distinctly wrong) noted that the building was "so strikingly decorated in mission style as to bear the neighborhood name of the Monastery."

Among the first residents was a 22-year old music student, Louise Lawson, who rented one of the three-room suites.   Louise had enjoyed a privileged childhood, the daughter of wealthy Texans, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Lawson of Walnut Springs.  She did not work; but her parents provided for her expenses which included Lillian Harvey, Louise’s maid who came every morning around 10:00.

Louise had arrived in New York with dreams of becoming a movie star.  She managed to land a small part in D. W. Griffith’s 1920 film Way Down East starring Lillian Gish (New York City was still the center of the motion picture industry).   She shared an apartment with her best friend, Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl Charlotte Wakefeld, at the time.

But her show business career wilted and she turned her focus to studying the piano.  In October 1922 she signed a lease at No. 22 West 77^th Street.  The rent was $1,900 per year, about $2,250 per month today.   Despite the fact that she was not working, The New York Times later mentioned “Persons who met her at the apartment said that she liked to be regarded as an actress, but that her success on the stage had been limited.”

Nevertheless, social life for a single girl in New York City during the Roaring Twenties was not wasted on Louise Lawson.   According to a newspaper “Occasionally, it was learned, Miss Lawson would surround herself with a lively crowd and hold a merry party in the apartment.  As a result of this she was cautioned several times.”

Louise’s fifth floor apartment, No. 56, was “luxuriously furnished,” including mahogany furniture and a grand piano fashionably cluttered with photographs in sterling silver frames.   Employees of the apartment building said she was never home on the weekends.  Like other girls with money in the Gatsby Era, she went off to country places, often whisked away from 77^th Street in a large olive green Pierce-Arrow touring car driving by a liveried chauffeur.

Louise, for example, was present at the scandalous party in Greenwich, Connecticut in September 1923 which ended with the drowning of Angier B. Duke, heir to the $5 million estate of Benjamin B. Duke.

In January 1924 there had been three burglaries at No. 22 West 77^th Street in quick succession.  They may have been on Louise’s mind when a knock on her door sounded one morning while a friend was visiting.  When the two men announced they had a delivery for her, she replied “I am not expecting any packages” and slammed the door.  Her friend later recalled that Louise “seemed to be upset by the episode and referred to it several times later.”

She had every reason to be unnerved by the matter.  Less than a month later, at around 8:00 on the morning of February 8, 1924, two men showed up at the service entrance.  The elevator operator, mindful of the string of burglaries, questioned them before taking them up.  They explained that they had a package for Miss Lawson.  About 20 minutes later one of the men called for the elevator.  He still carried the package and offhandedly said “Miss Lawson wanted scotch and not rye.  You never can tell what they want.”

It was not the delivery of alcohol during Prohibition that puzzled the elevator man—moneyed New Yorkers managed to get their liquor.  He wondered what had happened to the delivery man’s partner.

Later Louise’s next door neighbor, Peggy Tompkins, reported that she had heard Louise’s doorbell ring and heard her ask “Who is there.”

“A couple of expressmen.  We’ve got something here for you.”

Despite Louise’s cautious reaction just a few weeks earlier, she answered “I’m not dressed yet, wait a minute.”

Peggy Tompkins heard the door open and close a few seconds later; then heard nothing more until two hours later when screams emanated from Apartment 56.

Those screams came from Lillian Harvey.  Shortly before 10:00 the maid entered Louise’s apartment with her key.  “Removing her wraps, she went to work straightening out the private hall, a stretch of about ten feet, and then passed into the living room,” explained The Times the following day.

“As she entered she saw signs of disorder.  A big basket of American Beauty roses had been scattered over the Turkish rugs and the flowers had been torn apart by struggling feet.  Pictures were lying broken on the floor, and chairs had been thrown about.  The maid called for Miss Lawson, and then passed into the bedroom, which opened off the bathroom and a tiny kitchenette.”

Lillian found her employer face down on “the lace-trimmed linen cover of a mahogany bed in the dainty chamber.”  She was dead.  Police called her the victim “of one of the most savage crimes of recent years.”  She was bound at the wrists and feet, gagged with a Turkish towel held over her mouth by adhesive tape, and left to suffocate to death.

It appeared that the second man had waited for his accomplice to distract the elevator man so he could escape down the stairs with thousands of dollars in Louise’s jewelry and furs.   One missing ermine cape alone had been a $1,500 gift.

Police scoured the apartment for clues, but found little or nothing to go on.  The suite had been ransacked.  They even searched the ice box where they found no food, but two bottles of champagne and about a case of scotch. 

Although detectives repeatedly assured the public that they were closing in on the thieves; the trail eventually went cold and Louise Lawson’s murderers were never found.

Living in the building at the same time was wealthy bon vivant pen manufacturer Ignatz Salz, and Ralph Oyler, Chief of the Federal Narcotic Square.

The President of Salz Brothers, Inc., Ignatz Salz was 45 years old at the time of Louise’s murder.  Newspapers noted that he was “well-known” on Broadway—referring to the nightclubs rather than the theaters.  He was perhaps equally well known for his “attention to women.”  And Salz’s attention did not discriminate between married and unmarried females.

Three years after Louise Lawson’s murder, Ignatz Salz arrived home on Friday, January 14, 1927 around 6:00 and changed into his evening clothes.   Prepared for a night out with a companion and two women, he stuffed $4,000 in cash into his pocket and sported a diamond ring and diamond stickpin. 

Before he was quite ready, his doorbell rang.  When he opened the door, he was accosted by two men, about 30 years old, who tried to push him back into the apartment.  When he struggled, one said “Give it to him.”

The second man drew a pistol and fired.  Ignatz Salz fell to the floor in his doorway.  The men rushed from the building, into a waiting automobile and sped down Central Park West.

Detectives bandied about several motives for the shooting.  “Their first belief was that the two men, probably night club habitués of the criminal type who knew that Mr. Salz carried large sums of money, which was said to be his habit, had waited for him to come home and had entered intending to rob him,” reported The Times.

But that theory quickly was dismissed.  The men had made no attempt to take Salz’s jewelry and cash; and James Salz, the victim’s brother, pointed out that “if the men were robbers, why one should say ‘Give it to him’ and the other shoot him almost immediately.  It made no sense."

Another theory was that the gunmen had mistaken Salz for Federal narcotic agent Ralph Oyler.  He was responsible for the recent take-down of a German narcotics ring which resulted in the arrest of 32-year old Alice Seaman earlier that day.

But the motive investigators most focused on was “that the gunmen were hired by a person who hated Salz because of his attention to women.”  The New York Times reported two days later “The police questioned the two women who called at the apartment after the shooting.  They had a dinner appointment with Salz.  The detectives refused to make public the names of the women.  It was ascertained, however, that one of the two women is married.”

James Salz dismissed the idea as ridiculous.  “I know my brother better than any one else does.  He was a home-loving man, had not an enemy in the world, and either his assailants were bent on robbery or else they mistook him for Mr. Oyler.”

Despite James Salz’s offer of a $5,000 reward, as in the case of Louise Lawson, Ignatz Salz’s assailants were never found.

For three decades the violent episodes at No. 22 West 77^th Street were forgotten.  Respected residents like the well-known stage actor Malcom Fassett continued to live in the building.  But then on July 9, 1955 the address was once again the scene of murder.

Mary Samuels was already living in the building when she married 63-year old power press operator Monte J. Samuels in January 1955.  Mary worked for the Child Guidance Division of the Department of Welfare and Monte was her third husband.  She was twice widowed.  Monte’s only other marriage had ended in divorce.

The couple’s honeymoon period was short-lived.  Unable to live with her new husband, Mary telephoned his sister, Mrs. Sarah Phillips, on the morning of July 9.  She was telling Sarah to “have her brother’s belongings removed from the house” when Monte walked into the room.

With Sarah still on the line, he began fighting with his wife, and dragged her away from the telephone.  When police arrived, they found the 53-year old Mary strangled to death on the kitchen floor.

The pseudo half-timbering on the eastern side has been plastered over and the gable removed.

To date the only other violence and tragedy to occur at No. 22 West 77^th Street is the vandalism of the architecture by subsequent owners.  But despite the disrespectful alterations, the building still exhibits American architects’ love of the romantically picturesque Tudor style in the 1920s.

photographs by the author

Fred F. French's 1922 Nos. 59-63 East 54th Street

For years the three four-story brownstone houses at Nos. 59 through 63 East 54^th Street had been in the same families.  In October 1922 Edward Oliver Balzer purchased the old Boles house, No. 61, “for occupancy.”  In doing so he caused a wrinkle in the plans of Frederick F. French.

The Record and Guide reported on October that “a builder” reportedly had his eyes on all three “fine dwellings.”  He had already obtained No. 59 from Mrs. Nannie H. Olyphant for $85,000 (about $1.2 million today) and No. 63 from Mrs. Charles E. Miller.  Now the publication noted “It is learned that Mr. Balzer…is negotiating with the builder for a resale.”

No matter how fine the vintage, high-stooped brownstone homes had been; they were decidedly out of date in 1922.  And modern apartments had replaced private homes as fashionable living in the 54^th Street neighborhood between Madison and Park Avenues.

The completed building (at right) replaced three houses identical to those still standing in this 1938 photo by P. L. Sperr.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Fred F. French obtained the third property and his nine-story replacement building was completed in February 1923.  The Fred F. French Co. Apartment most often acted as both developer and architect.  Buildings by the firm often appeared in quaint neo-Tudor half-timbering at the time.  But Nos. 59-63 East 54^th Street was a modern mix of Renaissance and Elizabethan faced in red brick and trimmed in limestone.  Stone quoins ran up the sides of the unpretentious façade and framed the central windows.  Carved balconettes at the fourth floor anticipated the geometric Art Deco influence to come.

The middle two balconettes have been lost.  In 1959 storefronts were carved into street level.

The new building attracted moneyed residents.  Retired bachelor Arthur Thomson was among the first.  The former broker was 79 years old when the building was completed and was among the oldest members of the exclusive Union Club.

Charles Reed and his wife took an apartment here.  Their movements between their summer home in Tuxedo Park and the city were closely followed by society pages in the early 1930s.  

Another wealthy resident at the time was Thomas C. Eastman, member of Eastman, Dillon & Co., investment bankers.  His summer estate was on Long Island’s Gold Coast.  Undisturbed by the gloom of the Great Depression, on June 30, 1933 he gave a supper dance for “about 200 members of the Summer colonies of the north shore,” as described by The New York Times.  Among the guests were some of the most impressive names in society, including the Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitneys, Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, the W. Goadby Loews and Mr. and Mrs. Whitney Kernochan.

Following the death of George A. Skinner on December 21, 1935, his widow Rebacca (known as Peggy), moved into the 54^th Street building.  Skinner had co-founded Educational Pictures, Inc. in 1914 as a distributor of short educational and entertainment films.  But by the 1920s the firm turned to comedies; becoming the major independent distributor of short subject films.  By the time of Skinner’s death, it was producing comedy films with motion picture greats like Buster Keaton.

Peggy Skinner had enjoyed the life of the wife of a motion picture executive.  But now she was faced with “financial reverses.”  In January 1938 she sublet her apartment and moved into the Prince George Hotel at No. 14 East 28^th Street.  The once elegant hotel was now mainly occupied by tourists.

The desperate widow attempted to kill herself on the morning of February 28 by taking poison and slashing her wrists.  When she failed, she jumped from her eighth floor window to her death.

The 1940s would see high-profile residents.  On October 1, 1942 Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe moved in.  Stieglitz had suffered a serious heart attack in 1938 which left him increasingly weak.  According to biographer Laurie Lisle in her Portrait of an Artist, Georgia “wanted a place with a bedroom for Stieglitz that was small enough to be kept warm by an electric heater should wartime fuel rationing make that necessary.”

In 1939 Beatrice Ashley Chanler had moved in.  She was the widow of William Astor Chanler--celebrated African explorer, soldier and former Democratic Representative in Congress and a great-grandson of John Jacob Astor.  He died on March 4, 1934.  Beatrice was no less well-known.

The former actress had begun her career as Minnie Ashley and was discovered by De Wolf Hopper in 1895.  After marrying Chanler, she gave up the stage and turned to sculpting, producing portrait busts and bas-reliefs.  The bas-reliefs in the Hotel Vanderbilt were her work.

Her extraordinary war relief efforts had earned her the French Legion of Honor.  She founded the Lafayette Preventorium, Inc. in 1917.  The institution tended to French children, many of them “pre-tubercular” and malnourished.  She toured war-devastated areas of France for the Federation of American Agencies for France in 1919.

When ill health forced her to give up sculpting, Beatrice turned to historical writing.  Among her works was the 1934 Cleopatra’s Daughter: Queen of Mauretania.

When war again broke out in Europe, Beatrice Chanler again offered her services.  She was the president of a Greek relief organization and of the Committee of Mercy, Inc., and chairperson of the Ambulances for Our Army Committee, chairperson of the Salvage for Defense Division of Bundles for America, and an organizer of the British Civil Defense Emergency Fund.

Beatrice was notified that she would be decorated by the Greek Government for her efforts.  But she would not live to receive the award.  While on a train to her summer home in Islesboro, Maine, on June 20, 1946, she quietly died.

In 1959 the building’s owners, Leonard S. Kandell and Myron Eisenstein, commissioned architect H. E. Feldman to convert the upscale apartment house to an office building.  Feldman and interior decorator Eugene Stephenson surprisingly left many of the interior residential features intact.  The New York Times noted on November 27 that year, “Many of the building’s offices…have wood-burning fireplaces.”

Storefronts were installed at street level, but otherwise Fred F. French’s reserved façade was little impacted.  Interestingly, Feldman and Stephenson gave the office building a “homelike lobby.”  The Times said the owners were “mindful of the desire of many business men for homelike décor in their offices.”  In response they decorated the lobby with “upholstered furniture, window draperies, plants and rugs on the marble floor.”

Fred F. French’s 1922 building draws little attention on East 54^th Street; and few who pass by would guess that wealthy New Yorkers once came and went from their summer estates or that two of America’s greatest creative talents—Stieglitz and O’Keeffe—once lived here. 

photographs by the author

The 1913 No. 299 Madison Avenue (Library Hotel)

photo by Alice Lum

By 1912 the once-fashionable residential Madison Avenue neighborhood in Midtown, like its more visible Fifth Avenue counterpart, was seeing the encroachment of commerce.  Its millionaires joined the northward migration, leaving their mansions to be consumed by trade.

One of these was the impressive home of James Graham Phelps Stoke at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 41^st Street.   The newly-formed 299 Madison Avenue Co. purchased the old home, along with property to the rear, with intentions of building a modern building that would cost $110,000.  The architectal firm of Hill & Stout were given the commission to design the new structure.

The company’s architects tackled the tricky building plot—25 feet wide on Madison Avenue and 100 feet along 41^st Street.   They placed the entrance squarely on 41^st Street, creating a balance of the extended mass and avoiding the awkward proportion resulting from an entrance on the skinny Madison Avenue end.   Despite the placement of the entrance, the developers retained the more esteemed address of No. 299 Madison Avenue.

The early example of what would become known as a “sliver building” was designed in a sort of neo-Gothic style.   Twelve stories tall, its brown-toned brick façade was enlivened with terra cotta, Arts-and-Crafts style tiles, and columns of contrasting brick diamond patterns that charge up the piers like the electric bolts in a mad scientist’s laboratory.  The slender Madison Avenue elevation was highlighted with a brilliantly-conceived copper-clad projecting bay decorated with Gothic motifs.

The Sun published a photograph of the new building on April 27, 1913 (copyright expired)

The new building was ready for occupancy on May 1, 1913.  Perhaps the most significant of the first tenants was the Fred F. French Company.  The firm was a self-reliant all-in-one architectural, real estate development and construction company.  As Fred F. French Company established its headquarters here, a variety of tenants moved in including architects and related construction companies, and realtors.  The New York Realty Owners offices were here by 1914, followed by J. Romaine Brown Co., real estate who would stay into the 1920s.

The 12th floor terminates in Gothic-inspired motifs -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1916 the street level retail space became home to George G. Benjamin’s “correct clothes.”  The men’s outfitter called the space “far brighter and more accessible,” and assured customers that “men and young men will find it a distinct pleasure to visit this new store.”

As the U.S. became caught up in the First World War, printer’s broker William Simpson was doing business from the building.   One of his clients was Dr. William J. Robinson whom the New-York Tribune tagged a “radical writer and lecturer.”   The Russian doctor attempted to revive a blacklisted publication Voice in the Wilderness under the new title of I Cannot Tell a Lie.  In the pro-German newspaper, he professed that Germany was invincible and called for America’s immediate surrender “lest America suffer the fate of his native land.”

The New-York Tribune reported that “Dr. Robinson claims the gift of clairvoyance, and in the assumed role of a prophet warms the people of the United States to begin setting their houses in order by suing for immediate peace.”

The confiscated publication resulted in Robinson’s arrest on a charge of violating the espionage act.  Unfortunately for broker William Simpson, proofs of the Voice were found at 299 Madison Avenue and Simpson was arrested, held at a $2,500 bail.

A course of terra cotta inset with colorful tiles wraps around to the brilliant copper-clad bay -- photo by Alice Lum

As peacetime neared, the building continued to lure architects and building firms.  In 1919 architect Thomas C. Visscher had his offices here as did James L. Burley.    Bowdoin & Webster’s architectural offices were in the building by 1921, the same year that George A. Bagge & Sons architects moved in.  Samuel A. Herzog Contruction Company was doing business from the building at the same time.

But a new industry was finding No. 299 Madison Avenue convenient: aeronautics.   Less than two decades after the Wright brothers had made their first successful flight, the nation was obsessed with human flight.   Publications and gadgets associated with aeronautics were all the rage.  In 1919 The Shotwell Electric Weather Vane Co. marketed its long-distance wind instrument.  The directional indicator was connected to the weather vane by wires.  “When he wants to know the direction of the wind over his building—or twenty-five of fifty miles way—he presses a button, and the light on the dial shows the direction of the prevailing wind wherever the vane is located,” boasted an article in Flying Magazine.

The publication said “People who fly for sport or travel need not fly unless the weather is favorable and they can save themselves the trouble of preparing for a flight.”   The vane was reportedly “indispensable for aerodromes, the offices of field superintendents, postmasters, commanding and flying officers of Army, Navy and Marine Corps aerodromes—anybody interested in aeronautics.”

At the same time the Aeronautic Library was here.    Not an actual library, the marketing firm sent publications like the “Textbook of Military Aeronautics” via mail order across the nation for years.

Although it sits on 41st Street, the Gothic terra cotta entrance boldly announces its Madison Avenue address -- photo by Alice Lum

As the century progressed No. 299 Madison was home to a few gimmicky mail order firms.   In 1921 The Scientific Library, taking the lead perhaps from the Aeronautic Library, hawked the “Five Hundred Opportunities for Profit and Distinction,” by Henry Woodhouse.  For $1.00 the ambitious purchaser would learn of “inventions, discoveries and activities that created billion dollar industries” and “billion dollar industries to be.”  In 1943 Eldore Cosmetics was here.   The firm’s advertisement read “Men-Women! Send one dollar for 6 month’s supply of famous CVO Shampoo for healthy, beautiful hair.  Thousands pleased!”  And as late as 1963 B & R advertised in Popular Mechanics.  For the same $1.00 price readers could received instructions on how to “Enjoy thrill, discover gold.”

Yet the tenant list was not all about $1.00 mail order schemes.  In 1950 Fisher & Associates, Inc. was here.  Construction research consultants, the firm offered expertise in community planning and development.   Research was done on everything from improved building products and methods to insulation, siding and surfacing elements.

That same year on September 2 Liberty Broadcasting System established its national offices in the building.   The ingenious radio network broadcast live recreations of Major League Baseball games by following the action via Western Union ticker reports.   Life-like sound effects—the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd for instance—were added so that many radio listeners at home were unaware that the commentators were not actually watching the action.

The building continued to be filled with advertising agencies and real estate companies until the turn of the century.  In 2000 boutique hotelier Henry Kallan completed a conversion of the building into the 60-room Library Hotel, including two additional floors on the roof.

Perhaps taking inspiration from its proximity to the New York Public Library and the Morgan Library, the hotel classified each floor and room on a Dewey Decimal system category of knowledge.  The third floor is Social Sciences, for instance, and the fifth is Math and Science.  Each room on a particular floor has a library of books—from 25 to 100 volumes--relating to that floor’s theme.

Kallan spent over $1 million on mahogany for the bookshelves in the new hotel.  On the 14^th floor, a Poetry Garden includes a greenhouse sitting room with wicker furniture and a wrap-around terrace with views of the Public Library.

The ingenious 21^st century recycling of the 299 Madison Avenue building left the exterior happily intact.  The warm blend of materials—including the wonderful patina of the copper bay—survives as originally designed while the interiors enjoy a reincarnation.