The 1927 Three Arts Club - 340 West 85th Street

 

photo by Greghenderson2006

In the last decades of the 19th century, a wave of independent-minded women changed New York City's workforce.  No longer restricted to nurses, school teachers and domestics, young women came to the city to take new positions like "typewriters" and stenographers.  In response, hotels for single working women began cropping up throughout the city.  They offered single women a safe environment, friendship, and affordable accommodations. 

In 1902, Jane Harris Hall, a deaconess of the Protestant Episcopal Church, took the concept a step further.  She recognized another group of women who traveled to New York City alone--those not seeking employment, but artistic education.  Based on the American Girls' Club in Paris, she founded the Three Arts Club for female students in the drama, fine arts, and musical fields.  The club opened in an old brownstone, and in its March 1905 issue, The Designer explained:

Under its roof may be had, for the nearly nominal sum of from three to five dollars a week, all the advantages of the usual club life, together with the important addition of the comforts and privileges of home; for the new club house, on the sunniest corner of Sixty-second street and Lexington Avenue, combines both club and living-rooms within its four-story brownstone walls.

On November 27, 1909, The New York Times reported that the Three Arts Club had purchased the six-story apartment house at 338-340 West 85th Street.  Seventeen years later, the renovated apartment house was no longer adequate.  On June 15, 1926, the officers announced that the building would be demolished and replaced.

Architect George B. de Gersdorff designed an eight-story Colonial Revival-style structure faced in red brick and trimmed in limestone.  Completed in 1927 at a cost of $400,000 (about $7.2 million in 2026), its tripartite design focused on utility rather than ornament.  

The centered, arched entrance was flanked by engaged columns with palm leaf capitals that upheld an entablature that announced "The Three Arts Club."  A stone architrave around the window directly above it and a wrought iron, colonial-style railing created a faux balcony.  The upper two sections were unadorned other than stone keystones at the second and eighth floors.

photograph by Greghenderson2006

Inside were accommodations for 153 students.  Wealthy benefactors had generously donated to the structure.  Frederick W. Vanderbilt donated the Louise Anthony Vanderbilt Library in memory of his wife, and the club's president, Mrs. John Henry Hammond (the former Emily Vanderbilt Sloane), gave the club "the little theatre and assembly room with lounge and balcony," according to The New York Times.  Marcia Tucker, wife of millionaire Carll Tucker, "gave the studio or aerial work shop, reached from the eighth floor, where the elevator stops, by a stairway," said the newspaper.  "There is also sufficient room on the roof for a garden and sleeping porch."

As construction drew to an end, on March 19, 1927, The New York Evening Post reported that the Three Arts Club, "expects to formally open its large new building June 1."  The article praised, "The splendid work which the club has accomplished in giving a comfortable and inexpensive home to the young art students who come to New York is well known throughout the country."

The targeted completion date was optimistic and the understated, formal opening took place on November 17.  Among the six speakers who gave "five-minute addresses," according to The New York Times, was the club's founder, Jane Harris Hall; the building's architect, George B. de Gersdorff; and conductor and composer Walter Damrosch.  The guest of honor was operatic diva Emma Calvé.  Following the dedication, tea was served in the large dining room in the basement.

Maria Tucker's "aerial work shop" on the roof can be seen this 1940 photograph.  photographer unknown, via www.nyc.gov

In addition to being a place to live, the Three Arts Club was a venue in which to exhibit the work of its residents.  The theater, for instance, was where members staged a Christmas play, The Nativity of the Manger, in 1929.  And every year an art exhibition was held.   

The club also held events for the residents.  On December 31, 1934, for instance, The New York Sun reported that teacher and author Harriet Ayer Seymour "will give a course of four free lectures on adult education in music at the Three Arts Club."  And on April 13, 1937 the newspaper reported on the "bridge party and fashion show to be held in the ballroom of the club."

Residents (one shockingly smoking a cigarette) enjoy the "roof garden" in 1940.  photographer unknown, via www.nyc.gov

When the Three Arts Club opened in 1927, The New York Times had remarked that it had a "long waiting list."  Nothing had changed on August 13, 1946, when the newspaper reported that it was completely filled and, "The director...estimates that she has turned away 1,000 girls in the last three months."

The changing mores in the post-World War II years was reflected in a notice in the Columbia Spectator on October 28, 1949.  "The 'Three Arts Club' has extended an invitation to Columbia men to come to an informal dance to be held Saturday night at 340 West 85th Street."  The thought of men milling about in the clubhouse would, no doubt, have prostrated Jane Harris Hall in 1902.  (She would have been even more disturbed to know that the event lasted until 1 a.m.)

Three years later, on July 8, 1952, The New York Times reported that the Three Arts Club, "which for nearly half a century has served as a nonprofit residence for women students of the drama, music and fine arts, will close as of Sept. 1."  The article said the board of managers "will try to sell the eight-story clubhouse."

Their attempts were successful and in November 1952 the building was sold.  The new owners converted the building to the Brandon Residence for Women, catering to students and working women.  But, as had been the case with the Three Arts Clubs, women-only residences were becoming passé and the venture was short lived.

Within a year, 340 West 85th Street was the national headquarters of the Volunteers of America.  Founded in 1896 by Ballington Booth and his wife, Maud, the organization was in the building in time for its busiest time--Christmas.  On November 27, 1953, The New York Times remarked, "The army of Santa Clauses from the Volunteers of America will take over their traditional posts today alongside red chimneys on strategic sites in New York."

The donations went to good use.  On March 7, 1958, for instance, The New York Times reported that the Volunteers of America "provided aid last year for more than 79,000 persons in New York City and Westchester County."  The organization also staged used clothing drives for the needy and hired "many homeless and unemployed people to work in repairing these articles and making them available to the more unfortunate," as worded by National Field Secretary Oliver P. Strickland in March 1959.

The Volunteers of America continued to operate here until 2017, when it sold the building to the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing.  It accommodated 125 formerly homeless seniors in single-room-occupancy units.

The institution initiated a renovation in May 2026.  The conversion will result in about half of the units.  The 61 affordable studio apartments will continue to house persons over 55 years old with low income.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The Lost Henry de Coppet Mansion - 754 Park Avenue

 

The Architectural Record. November 1911 (copyright expired)

Robert W. Buckley and Robert McCafferty composed the builder-architect firm of McCafferty & Buckley.  In July 1891, McCafferty bought out his partner's share of their new, upscale house at 754 Park Avenue (adjoining the southwest corner of 72nd Street) for his own occupancy.  By then, the thoroughfare was seeing the construction of similar upscale residences.  

McCafferty died in the Park Avenue house on February 11, 1905 "after a long illness."  Less than two months later, on April 1, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that his estate had sold the 34-foot-wide dwelling to Henry de Coppet.

De Coppet and his wife, the former Laura Fawcett, commissioned architect George B. de Gersdorff to modernize the outdated Victorian.  His plans, filed in June, called for a new facade, an extension to the rear, and reconfigured interior partitions.  The renovations cost the De Coppets the equivalent of $441,000 in 2026.

Court documents in 1914 reveals the odd footprint of the De Coppet property.  Supreme Court, Bronx County, August 1914 (copyright expired)

De Gersdorff dealt with an unusual footprint, especially considering that his extension would mostly gobble up the rear yard.  He removed the stoop and pulled the facade to the property line.  The entrance was lowered to below grade, centered within a marble base.  De Gersdorff faced the upper floors in red brick and trimmed in marble.  The three windows of the first floor, or piano nobile, sat within slightly recessed arches.  The neo-Georgian design included splayed lintels, a handsome stone balustrade atop the third floor, and large dormers that fronted the fourth floor mansard.

Influential architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler was displeased with the awkward placement of the below-ground entrance.  He said the mansion...

is unmistakably Old New York, excepting the high stoop--very much excepting the high stoop, for here the revivalist has gone to the other extreme; and to dive into the area in order to get at the front door cannot be considered a dignified mode of entrance.

Henry and Laura de Coppet were born in 1843 and 1840 respectively and were married in 1873.  Henry was "a member of a family long prominent in financial and social affairs," according to The New York Herald.  He was educated at the University of Berne and founded his own brokerage firm.  He retired in 1900.

He and Laura had three children, Beatrice, Gertrude and Theakson.  (Their first child, Kinloch Fawcett, died in 1876 at the age of two.)  The family's summer home, Summerstay, was near Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island.

The family was at Summerstay on July 20, 1910 when their automobile was involved in what would be an expensive accident.  The vehicle collided with that of Dr. Henry Rolf Brown, another Manhattanite.  On September 2, Brown and his passenger, Mary H. Rhentan, filed individual suits against Henry de Coppet--Brown's for $5,000 in injuries and damages to his car; and Rhentan's for $5,000 for personal injuries and "a shock to her nervous system."  The suits alleged that the De Coppets' chauffeur "was driving in a careless manner."  The combined suits would translate to about $243,000 today.

Theakston de Coppett had attended Columbia University and was a stockbroker by the time the family moved into 754 Park Avenue.  In 1916, he turned his back to Wall Street and urban life, purchasing the abandoned mill village of Hillsdale, Rhode Island.  He moved there and became president of the town council.  (An early preservationist, the bachelor would will the entire 1,800-acre estate to the state of Rhode Island in 1937.)

In 1920, the family had to address an uncomfortable issue: Henry's mental decline.  On May 11, The Sun reported that Laura "and two of his children," had applied for what today would be termed a conservatorship.  The article said that De Coppet, "is alleged to be suffering from senile dementia." 

As it turned out, the conservatorship was not necessary.  Henry de Coppet died less than five months later on October 6, 1920 at the age of 77.

Laura Fawcett de Coppet survived her husband by six years, dying in the mansion on April 21, 1926.  At the time, her daughters, neither of whom would marry, lived in the house.  They sold 754 Park Avenue to Mary Hoyt Wiborg in July 1929.

Born in 1888, Mary's maternal grandfather was millionaire Hoyt Sherman and her uncles were General William Tecumseh Sherman and Senator John Sherman.  The wealthy socialite had served in a French hospital during World War I.  She now had turned to playwrighting and in 1922 released Taboo, which starred Paul Robeson.

Mary Hoyt Wiborg, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Wiborg's family owned the corner mansion, and on March 25, 1930, The New York Times reported Mary Hoyt Wiborg had sold the two residences to the Rhoades-Kennedy Security Corporation, "which intends to erect on the site a $3,000,000 eighteen-story cooperative apartment house."  The article noted, "The parcel is one of the few in Park Avenue not improved with an apartment house."

In reporting on the transaction, the newspaper commented, "Miss Wiborg, who is prominent in society, is the daughter of Frank B. Wiborg, local manufacturer.  They have a home also in East Hampton, L. I."

Mary Hoyt Wiborg's family's mansion can be glimpsed at the right.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Something, possibly the Depression, derailed the plans.  The property reverted to Mary Wiborg and she continued to reside in 754 Park Avenue.  An art connoisseur, she filled the mansion with a remarkable art collection.  On February 20, 1931, for instance, The East Hampton Star reported that Mary had loaned "three canvases by Picasso" to the Brooklyn Museum for a year.  "Among the Picasso group was a canvas entitled 'Seated Women,' in the modern manner."

When her father died on May 12, 1930, Mary Wiborg inherited $365,509 from his estate--about $7.5 million today. 

At mid-century, the combined corner property was again sold and this time the developers were successful.  The two mansions were replaced by a 17-story apartment building designed by Horace Ginsbern & Associated, completed in 1951.

image via cocoran.com.

The Joseph Hodges Choate Mansion - Nos. 10-12 East 94th Street

In 1891, Samuel Sinn purchased the newly-completed rowhouse at 12 East 94th Street.  Designed by A. B. Ogden & Son for developer John H. Gray, it was one of a string of new brownstone-faced houses.  The 49-year-old was a member of the brokerage firm Sternberger, Furd & Sinn.  He and his wife, the former Diana Horkheimer of Virginia, had one son, Bernard, who was attending New York City College.

Bernard graduated from Cornell University in 1907 and went into banking.  The following year, on May 13, his father died.  The funeral was held in the 94th Street house two days later.

Diana Sinn and her son remained in the house.  Next door at No. 10 lived the Neuburger family.  Isidor Neuburger, who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, was the founder of the Neuburger Silk Company.  He died in his home at the age of 66 on January 22 1916.

By the time of Neuburger's death, the 25-year-old rowhouses were architecturally out of date.  Steps away, at the corner of Fifth Avenue, the magnificent neo-Georgian mansion of Willard D. Straight had been completed the year before; and two blocks to the south Andrew Carnegie's grand home was in the same style.  The Sinn and Neuburger houses would be pulled into the trend before long.

On the afternoon of New Year's Eve 1918, the New-York Tribune reported, "Joseph H. Choate, jr., is going to become a resident of Carnegie Hill, as the section adjoining the town house of Andrew Carnegie has become known."

The article explained, "Mr. Choate has bought the two old four-story dwelling houses at 10 and 12 East Ninety-fourth Street...He will have the two houses reconstructed into one dwelling from plans by G. B. De Gersdorff, architect."

Like his father, Joseph Hodges Choate, Jr. had graduated from Harvard and was a well-respected attorney.  Yet his own successes would always be overshadowed by his father's reputation--he was the Ambassador to the Court of St. James under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and headed the American delegation of the Second International Peace Conference in the Hague in 1907.

Choate and his architect had a Harvard connection.  The 1903 Harvard Stadium had been designed by George B. de Gersdorff.  For the extensive remodeling project, De Gersdorff followed the trend begun in the neighborhood by Andrew Carnegie in 1903, turning to the neo-Georgian style (with a splash of the harmonious neo-Federal).

The 42-year-old attorney and his wife, the former Cora Lyman Oliver, were living at 158 East 71st Street near Lexington Avenue.  Cora, too, had an illustrious father.  Brigadier General Robert Shaw Oliver was a Civil War veteran and former Assistant Secretary of War.  The couple, married in 1903, had three daughters, Marion, Helen and Priscilla, and a son Joseph 3d.

The family moved into their new home in the first months of 1920.  No trace of the combined high-stooped brownstones remained.  George B. de Gersdorff had produced a refined residence of Flemish bond red brick trimmed in contrasting limestone.  The stone-framed entrance, topped by a projecting cornice, was slightly offset.  Its double doors were adorned with a handsome iron fanlight.  (Interestingly, while the fanlight design incorporated the street number "12," the Choates would variously list their address as either "10" or "12.")

The second floor, or piano mobile, featured four shallow arches that embraced French doors opening onto cast iron balconettes.  Splayed lintels capped the openings, and a stone modillioned cornice capped the facade.  Above, three copper-clad dormers pierced the high peaked roof.

Cora Choate wasted no time in opening the doors to her new home.  She was an active supporter of presidential candidate Leonard Wood.  On April 27, 1920, the New-York Tribune noted, "Many meetings for women interested in the campaign of Leonard Wood for President will be held this week."  Among those events, it reported, "Thursday evening, Mrs. Joseph Choate jr. will hold a meeting for business women at her home, 10 East Ninety-fourth Street."

More than four decades earlier, on February 28, 1878, Mrs, John Jay hosted the first meeting of the Thursday Evening Club in her Washington Square mansion.  She intended the social club to “maintain its standard, and to make it increasingly a centre of intellectual intercourse and recreation, by resisting every tendency to ostentation or extravagance in its entertainments and by welcoming to its fellowship those whose credentials are to be found in cultivated tastes and literary or artistic accomplishments.”

Now Joseph and Cora resuscitated the exclusive group.  On March 16, 1922, The New York Herald reported, 

The meeting of the Thursday Evening Club last week with Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Choate at 10 East Ninety-fourth street revived memories of an organization unique in the history of society and which has withstood all changes, in that august body, that naturally have come about with new ideas and the shifting of individual families whose homes at the start of the club seemed almost fixtures for generations.

As with all moneyed families, lavish entertaining for the children centered around the girls.  In 1922, the focus of attention would turn to the debutante festivities for Marion.  They started out on December 5, 1923 with a reception and musicale for 200 "older friends" of her parents.  "Next Wednesday evening," reported The New York Times, "Mrs. Choate will give a dinner dance for Miss Choate and the young dancing set."  The 50 guests invited to that dinner included Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. and the namesake of her aunt, the Duchess of Marlboro.

In 1925 it was Helen's turn.  Her debut included a dinner and dance on December 11 for guests with socially-elite names like Belmont, Iselin, Stokes, Baker, Phelps and Burden.  And in 1927 Priscilla was feted with her coming out entertainments.

One-by-one the Choate girls married.  When Helen married Geoffrey Platt in the Church of the Heavenly Rest on December 20, 1932, The New York Times noted "The marriage is of wide interest not only in this city but Washington D. C., and London as well," reminding readers of Helen's grandfather's government positions.  Following the ceremony the Choates opened their 94th Street mansion ("which had been decorated with ferns, palms and various kinds of white flowers") for the reception.

Two years later the reception for Priscilla's marriage to Norwood Penrose Hallowell, Jr., was held here.  Like her sister, she was wedded in the Church of the Heavenly Rest.

On November 29, 1933, Joseph H. Choate, Jr. was appointed director and chairman of the Federal Alcohol Control Committee by President Franklin Roosevelt, making him the "virtual 'liquor czar,'" as described by The New York Times.  The position was necessary because of the reversal of the Volstead Act, eliminating Prohibition.

Choate was responsible, according to the President, for three main goals: To ensure that States had full authority over methods of sale; that the public was provided with "pure liquor at moderate prices;" and that bootlegging was eliminated.   His appointment was well deserved.  He had fought arduously for the repeal of Prohibition for years.

Among the domestic staff in the Choate home was Mary Maroney.  The 55-year-old maid helped teach a would-be mugger not to mess with feisty Irish girls on November 15 1945.  At around 10:00 that night, 21-year-old Price Swift had attempted to grab a purse from a school teacher, Mary Sheahan, on Madison Avenue.  The 35-year-old woman refused to let go and the two ended up on the pavement struggling.  Mary's screams were heard by her father "who ran from their home, near Eighty-ninth Street, swinging a combination cane and shillelagh," reported The New York Times.  "Although Mr. Sheahan struck him, the suspect escaped."

Fifteen minutes later Mary Maroney was leaving the Choate mansion.  Just as she arrived at the corner of 94th Street and Fifth Avenue, Swift attacked.  She told police he tried to drag her into an alley, but she ferociously fought back.  Swift fled, but not before a passerby had summoned police.

He was caught four blocks away.  "Although he protested his innocence he was identified by the two women and Mr. Sheahan, and was charged with felonious assault and robbery," said the newspaper.

Cora Choate died in the family's country home in Mount Kisco, New York on November 11, 1955 at the age of 79.  Long active in the operations of the New York Orthopaedic Dispensary and Hospital, later part of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, she had served on its board of supervisors for over two decades and was its third vice president.

The following year, in November, Joseph Choate sold the mansion to the Louise Wise Services.  After renovations, the house was opened with a reception and supper on June 11, 1958.  Founded in 1918 by Louise Waterman Wise to find homes for Jewish orphans, it now "provides aid to unmarried Jewish mothers and adoption services for children up to 14 years," according to its chairman, Justice Polier.

The Louise Wise Services was forward thinking--possibly too much so in some instances.  In 1963, the institution initiated a strong appeal for white couples to adopt black orphans.  The results would have been disheartening for most agencies.  A year later the program had failed to place even one youngster.

But executive assistant Mignon Krause insisted that "the outlook was not completely pessimistic" and pointed out the agency's work in other areas.  Writing in The New York Times on April 27, 1964, Emma Harrison reported, "Louise Wise, which once placed only Jewish children, has had unusual success in placing American Indian children and children of mixed marriages."

In 1969 Louise Wise Services addressed another often overlooked group: unwed fathers.  "In unmarried pregnancies, people often think it's the poor girl and the ruthless seducer," explained Marianne Blatt, head of the agency's Services to Unmarried Parents.  "But very often it's a frightened boy and an aggressive girl."  Now Louise Wise Services began offering counseling programs to the young men.

In 1991, the former mansion was divided into two rental apartments, one using the former service entrance to the east, the other the main doorway.  When D. Claeys Bahrenburg, formerly chairman of Petersen Publications, purchased the 12,000-square-foot house in 2000 for $7 million, he found upscale amenities in the upscale apartments: a hidden movie screen in the front room of the parlor floor, two marble baths and Jacuzzi on the third; and the upper triplex contained three guest bedrooms, four marble baths and a master bedroom suite accessed by a sky-lit staircase.

Bahrenburg made no changes, and put the house back on the market in January 2001 for $11.5 million.  Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn initiated a two-year renovation that returned the mansion to a single family residence.  While she operates her gallery, Salon 94, from the ground floor, there is no signage; and the prim colonial-inspired house retains its 1920 integrity.

photographs by the author