George H. Griebel's 1891 201 East 16th Street

 

Born into a wealthy and influential Berlin family in 1846, George Henry Griebel immigrated to Washington D.C.  After working as an architect for the government, including designing the magnificent Great Hall of the Library of Congress, he relocated his practice to New York City in 1880.  He received a commission from Alfred Corning Clark to design a substantial office-and-store building at the northeast corner of Third Avenue and 16th Street in 1890.  In a landscape of refined 19th century rowhouses and the Gothic Revival structures of the St. George's Episcopal Church complex, Griebel's design would stand out.

Completed in 1891, the six-story structure towered over its neighbors.  Griebel configured the windows in groups of three.  The sturdy piers of the two-story base, composed of alternating brick and stone, were capped with intricately carved capitals.  They supported a sandstone level embellished with delightful cast iron ornaments and carved portrait keystones.  The mid-section featured three-story piers, their brick laid to suggest fluting.  The windows of the top floor were arranged in arcades, somewhat mirroring the arched corbel table below the cornice.

The building attracted a variety of tenants.  Among the first was the Illuminating Engineering Co., which designed elements for the developing electrical lighting industry.  

Among Illuminating Engineering Co.'s products were fluted glass shades.  The Central Station, May 1903 (copyright expired)

The structure's proximity to the St. George's Church complex resulted in the St. George's Men's Club taking space.  It was the venue of a chess tournament in the spring of 1897.  On April 6, The Evening Post reported, "A match, five games up draws not counting, is in progress at the St. George's Men's Club, No. 201 East Sixteenth Street."  The previous evening, the competition had been interrupted by an unexpected visit by an illustrious player.  "Last night C[harles] Devidi paid a visit in the club, and gave an impromptu simultaneous performance, conducting six games, all of which he won."

George Letchworth English was born in 1864 and graduated from Friends' Central School in Philadelphia in 1881.  He was described by Who's Who in New York City and State in 1905 as an "expert on monazite and the rare earth minerals."  He established Geo. L. English & Co., "dealers in choice scientific minerals."  In February 1903, the firm announced in The Mineral Collector, "Our office and salesrooms were removed during January to the modern building 201 East Sixteenth Street, northeast corner of Third Avenue, where we have leased the entire third floor."  The announcement noted that the space was "splendidly lighted by fifteen large windows on two sides."

The filaments inside lightbulbs at the turn of the last century worked only within a vacuum.  Two tenants of 201 East 16th Street in 1907 were Pulsometer Pumps and Fahn & McJunkin.  The competitors manufactured "pumps for exhausting incandescent lamp bulbs," as explained in Electrical Review on August 24 that year.  Fahn & McJunkin had just signed a contract with the Linolite Company to manufacture its products here.  With that deal, reported Electrical Review, "The company is now working on the equipment for four large lamp factories."

The New York offices of the Wheeling Mold & Foundry Co. were here in 1908.  Two years later, the English-based Thermal Syndicate, Ltd. established its New York office here.  The Mining World reported on June 25, 1910, "The company manufactures silica ware in large and small sizes, suitable for metallurgical and chemical plants."

The St. George's Men's Club was still in the building in 1916, when the St. George's Lunch Room was opened.  The New York Charities Directory described it as, "A lunch room for respectable working women," saying it served, "simple, inexpensive lunches."

The first, and possibly the only, garment firm in the building signed a lease in 1920.  On March 5, The Corset and Underwear Review reported that Bessie Damsey "is now settled in enlarged quarters at 201 East Sixteenth Street."  The article described Bessie Damsey as "one which makes an all-around line of the exclusively fine in undergarments."

Dry Goods Economist, December 4, 1920 (copyright expired)

Geo. L. English & Co. remained in the building well into the 1920s.  In 1922, the Sun Press, Inc. took a floor, and renewed its lease in 1931 for an annual rental of $2,100 (about $43,300 by 2025 terms).  Another tenant in the 1920s was the Capitol Paper Company.

Isidore Rosenthal worked as a truck driver for Capitol Paper Company in 1926.  On May 24, he was driving on Essex Street where a group of little boys were playing tag.  Suddenly, six-year-old William Lucher darted out in front of Rosenthal's truck and was struck.  Rosenthal picked up the boy and drove to Gouverneur Hospital but when he arrived, Lucher was dead.  Doctors said his skull had been fractured.  Although Rosenthal was arrested "on a technical charge of homicide," according to The New York Times, "Persons who witnessed the accident declared him blameless."

As early as 1940, an Atlantic & Pacific grocery store occupied the commercial space.  Renamed A & P after mid-century, it still occupied the ground floor into the 1960s.

The Atlantic & Pacific food market occupied the ground floor in 1941.  The Third Avenue elevated ran in front of the building.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A peculiar detail was affixed to the 16th Street facade between the early 1940s and 1975.  Around 1910, Grosvenor Atterbury designed whimsical lanterns for the residential complex at Forest Hills Gardens.  Unique to that project, one of them mysteriously appeared here.  In 1997, The New York Times journalist Christopher Gray attempted to solve the enigma with no success.

Poorly treated today, the standard of this example depicts trees sprouting from flower boxes.

In the meantime, the tenant list--once filled with mineralogic labs and technical electrical workrooms--now included firms like Merlite Industries, Inc. which advertised in The Popular Science Monthly in 1953, "You too can make good money showing 'Science's New Midget Miracle' to owners of homes, cars, boats, farms, etc."  The device was a hand-held fire extinguisher.

The commercial space has been split into two businesses, and George H. Griebel's storefront was long ago vandalized beyond recognition.  Otherwise, other than needing a cleaning, the handsome structure survives wonderfully intact after 134 years.

photographs by the author

George H. Griebel's 1891 34 and 36 West 73rd Street

High stoops originally led to the entrances, which are now the wider windows or the second floor.

In 1891 developer F. G. Pourne completed a row of nine impressive stone-faced homes at 28 through 44 West 73rd Street.  Architect George H. Griebel had designed them in the Romanesque Revival style with elements of Renaissance Revival.  They were configured in an A-A-B-A-A-B-A-A-C pattern, the second story oriels of the A models and the three-story bowed bays of the B's creating an undulation of rounded forms.

Among the matching A models were 34 and 36 West 73rd Street.  They were faced in limestone from the basement through second floors, and beige Roman brick above.  The second floor oriels, with their blind balustrades and bearded portrait brackets, stole attention from the parlor level.  Equally eye-catching were the openings of the top floor, arranged in an arcade separated by ornate, engaged columns.

Pourne sold 34 West 73rd Street to Henry Bramble Wilson, a partner in the banking firm of Emerson McMillin & Co., and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Willard.  Both had been born in Ironton, Ohio and lived there until 1890, when they relocated to New York City.

The couple filled the house with fine artwork.  The New York Times later commented that Wilson was "known as an art connoisseur, and owned many valuable paintings."  He was, as well, a member of the National Arts Club and the chairman of the Art Committee of the Union League Club.

The Wilsons had three daughters, the eldest of whom made her debut five years after the family moved into the 73rd Street house.  On December 12, 1896, the New York Herald announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bramble Wilson, of No. 34 West Seventy-third street, gave a reception, followed by an informal dance, last night at Sherry's to introduce their daughter, Miss Ella Willard Wilson."  Ella was married to Captain Paul Comstock in the drawing room on April 29, 1903.

In the meantime, Evaristo Vicente Montalvo y Rodriguez-Prieto and his wife, the former Maria Louisa Leblanc y Hernandez, had purchased the house next door.   The wealthy owners of a Cuban sugar plantation, the couple had a son, Evaristo Vincente, who was 16 years old at the time.  

In 1895, young Evaristo entered Princeton University.  He was the only Cuban and one of just two Roman Catholics among his classmates.  His studies were interrupted when the United States intervened on behalf of Cuba against Spain in its fight against colonial rule.  After the USS Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor, the Spanish-American War broke out and Evaristo enlisted to fight.

He later wrote in the Record of the Class of 1897 of Princeton University, "It was Cuba's fight--my fight.  Duty stared me in the face."   Evaristo did not see combat, however.  He was sent to the Philippines to serve as a translator.

Evaristo did not finish his studies at Princeton University and in 1900 Triennial Record light-heartedly updated the 1897 class:

Cuba freed, the Count has returned to his ancestral estates, and is now basking in the sunshine of the tropics, surrounded by a score of obsequious attendants, who fan his fevered brow and press to his parched lips costly goblets wherein is the clink of ice and the sparkle of nectar.  The enervating influences of such a life have destroyed all his epistolary energy...His mission in life accomplished, his sword has been beaten into a plow-share and his spear into a sugar-hook.  The raising of cane (sic) once more engrosses his entire attention.

Indeed, at the war's end, the entire family had returned to Cuba.  On October 31, 1900, the New York Post reported that the De Montalvos had sold 36 West 73rd Street to the Edward C. Clark estate.  At the same time the Montalvos left West 73rd Street, so did the Wilsons.  Like their next door neighbors, they sold 34 to the Clark estate, which rented the houses.  The former Wilson residence became home to Dyer Pearl and his wife, Euphemia Caroline, known familiarly as Carrie.  The couple had three children, William, Dyer, Jr., and Elsie. 

Pearl was the senior member of the brokerage firm Pearl & Co and a member of the New York Stock Exchange.  Following his graduation from City College in 1874, he had joined Dyer, Pearl & Co., which his grandfather had founded in 1830.  He and his brother, William renamed the firm following their father's death in 1881.

Like their predecessors in the house, the Pearls were staunch Roman Catholics, and on October 6, 1905, the New-York Tribune reported, "The Pope to-day received in private audience Dyer Pearl...and Mrs. Pearl."

While the couple was in Italy, drama played out at home.  Pearl & Co. securities worth $359,330 had disappeared from the National City Bank on September 27.  It was a massive theft, worth about $10.7 million today.  Then, three days later, a messenger dropped of a bulky envelope with a servant at the Pearl home.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Dyer Pearl, jr., a student at Princeton, went to the house Sunday, saw the envelope and telephoned to E. F. Slayback, a member of the firm...saying he suspected the envelope contained some of the stolen securities."  And it did.  There was $269,000 worth of the missing securities in the envelope, which had been dropped off by a regretful National City Bank Clerk.  The remainder was later recovered.

Dyer, Jr. was the last of the children to leave the house.  He was married to Bessie M. Pond Phipps on May 28, 1912.

Dyer and Carrie Pearl attended the Metropolitan Opera on February 10, 1913, and when they arrived home, Carrie realized that silver and diamond pin was gone.  She went back to the Met, only to find it had been claimed that night.   Much annoyed, she placed two announcements in the newspapers:

Will the lady who on Monday evening, February 10, claimed a silver Bar Pin from the doorman at the Metropolitan Opera House please send her name and address to box office and oblige the doorman?

and

Will person who claimed Pin at Opera House Monday night return to owner?  Reward and no questions.  34 West 73d.

As it turned out, there were two lost bar pins that night.  Carrie's chagrin was unfounded.  The New York Herald reported, "A few hours after the advertisements appeared Mrs. Pearl's bar pin was returned to her by a man who resides in Newark, and who found it on the night it was lost."  The article said the "I-would-worry" lines on the face of the Metropolitan Opera doorman were replaced by an "I-told-you-so" smile.

The Pearls suffered another troubling incident later that year.  Their close friends, William Henry Maule and his wife, who were from Philadelphia, were returning home on September 3 from "an automobile trip through the White Mountain region," as reported by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  They stopped at the Pearl house for a few days.  Just two hours after arriving, William went to the New York Club where, while talking to a friend, he collapsed and died.

After leasing the house for two decades, the Pearls purchased 34 from the Clark estate in March 1920.  That year the estate sold 36 West 73rd Street to conductor and voice coach Percy Rector Stephens.  Born in Chicago in 1876, Stephens had graduated from the University of Notre Dame and began his teaching career in New York City in 1897.

The year after he purchased the house, on September 14, 1921, Stephens married Jeannette Vreeland.  In 1925 the couple outfitted a floor as a rental apartment.  An advertisement that year described a four-room and kitchen space with "3 closets, parquet floors, paneled walls, 2 colonial fireplaces."

Carrie Pearl died suddenly on February 11, 1922.  Her funeral was held in the house three days later.  Dyer sold the residence in July 1924 to John Enos Quinn and his wife, Ethel C. Quinn.  Ethel continued the tradition of entertaining in the house.  On January 16, 1925, for instance, The New York Times announced, "Mrs. John Enos Quinn, President of the Women's Democratic Club of the City of New York, will entertain on the remaining Sundays in January at her home." 

The end of the line for both houses came in 1944 when developer Frederick A. Jambes purchased these and four others along the row.  On December 1, The Sun reported, "The buyer now controls a combined frontage of 120 feet on which he plans to build a twelve story apartment house after the war."  And, indeed, two years later plans were filed by architect H. I. Feldman for a $450,000 apartment house at 28-36 West 73rd Street.

Those plans, however, were never carried out.  Instead, both 34 and 36 West 73rd Street were converted to apartments.  Their stoops were removed and the entrances lowered to the former English basement level.

John Harms, the head of the John Harms Chorus, operated his vocal studio from an apartment in 36 West 73rd Street.  His chorus's presentation of Elijah in Town Hall on May 31, 1944 "evoked great praise from the critics in New York papers," said The Diapason.   The journal added that his studio "at 36 West Seventy-third Street in New York, is one of the most spacious private studios in the city."

Another artistic tenant were dancers Daniel Nagrin and his wife, Helen Tamiris.  Helen's career began in 1926.  Born  Helen Becker of Russian immigrant parents on the Lower East Side, she studied dance at the Metropolitan Opera's ballet school.  The New York Times recalled on August 5, 1966, "In 1929 she introduced Negro spirituals to the Salzburg Festival in Austria in a recital there, and the follow year she joined Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in founding the Dance Repertory Theater.

Turning to Broadway after the war, she arranged the choreography for Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat, Plain and Fancy, and Inside U.S.A.  In 1960, Nagrin and Tamiris founded a new concert company.

Other than their lost stoops, the two handsome houses are little changed since their first owners moved in their furniture and artwork in 1891.

photographs by the author

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The 1892 Louis Ottman House - 38 West 73rd Street

 A window occupies the arched opening that was originally the entrance.

In 1891 developer F. G. Pourne completed a row of nine impressive stone-faced homes at 28 through 44 West 73rd Street.  Architect George H. Griebel had designed them in the Romanesque Revival style with elements of Renaissance Revival.  They were configured in an A-A-B-A-A-B-A-A-C pattern, the second story oriels of the A models and the three-story bowed bays of the B's creating an undulation of rounded forms.

Among the B-designs was 38 West 73rd.   A stoop rose to the Romanesque Revival arched entrance, flanked by engaged colonettes and surmounted by robust, undressed voussoirs.   It contrasted sharply with the formal Renaissance Revival decorations seen elsewhere on the facade--the classical pediment over the charming second floor hallway window, the stone balustrade at the fourth floor, and the intricate carved panel below the parlor window.

Originally sold to Channing F. Mark, the residence became home to the Ottman family by 1899.  Louis Ottman was president and director of William Ottman & Co., a wholesale provisions firm, and of the J. Ottman Lithographing Co.  A long-time resident of the neighborhood, he was elected to membership in the West End Association that year.

The Ottmans had three children, Helen, Elizabeth Anna,  and William.  Helen was the first to wed, marrying Henry Dunkak in the Brick Presbyterian Church on June 6, 1901.  The reception was held in the fashionable Delmonico's on Fifth Avenue.

The following year, in December, William's engagement to Arthemise Bouligny Baldwin was announced.  The New York Herald described the bride-to-be as "a prominent member of society in New Orleans, La."

As had been the case with her sister's wedding, the Brick Presbyterian Church was the scene of Elizabeth Anna's marriage to Victor de la Montague Earle on April 26, 1905.  The groom came from an old New York family, his father was General Ferdinand Pinney Earle, and his family lived in the famous Jumel Mansion, erected by an Earle ancestor, Captain William Morris.  The wedding reception was held in the West 73rd Street house where, noted The New York Times, "the young couple will also make their home after a brief Western trip."

In 1908 the house became home to Mengo L. Morgenthau and his family.  Morgenthau was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1860.  His parents had brought him and his 12 siblings to America in 1866.  As a young man he had tried several occupations.  Starting as a stock clerk for a shirt manufacturer, he went on to farming in Ohio, and then tried teaching school.  He returned to New York, eventually becoming a member of the dry goods stores Morgenthau, Bouland and Company. 

He changed careers again in the 1890's when he "determined upon a plan of candy production and retailing which should set up a standard of candy quality that could be absolutely guaranteed as to purity and wholesomeness of material, and manufactured under conditions of scrupulous cleanliness," according to The Americana: A Universal Reference Library.  The first of his Mirror candy stores opened on Sixth Avenue on October 15, 1896.  By the time he purchased 38 West 73rd Street, he ran nine stores.

Morgenthau had married Belle Mayer on April 8, 1891.  The couple had two daughters, Agnes Josephine, who was 16 years old in 1908, and Louise Henriette, who was 12.  The family's summer home was in Long Branch, New Jersey.

The family summered in Europe in 1910.  Their return trip on the luxury liner Mauretania ended badly.  Customs officials looked over Morgenthau's declaration, which mentioned clothing valued at $700.  When a doubtful agent questioned Morgenthau, he admitted quietly that he had, perhaps, undervalued the items.  That resulted in close inspection of the trunks.  "Customs Inspector Dolan found in the trunks new gowns, which appeared to be worth many times that amount," reported the Perth Amboy Evening News on September 17.

Dolan then ordered female inspectors to search Belle and her daughters, while another inspector patted down Morgenthau.  The article said, "Nothing was found on the young ladies, but on Mrs. Morgenthau was found a chamois bag containing two pearl necklaces and a rope of pearls."  Mengo had a pearl necklace and two gold watches hidden in his clothing.

The Perth Amboy Evening News began its article saying, "The arrest of Mengo L. Morgenthau, millionaire candy manufacturer, on a charge of smuggling, caused a distinct sensation here."  The undeclared jewelry was valued at $13,000 and the clothing at $2,100--or about $424,000 in today's money.  

Morgenthau pleaded guilty, and the expensive items were seized and sent to the Appraisers' Stores for liquidation.  Mengo and Belle were no doubt devastated by the embarrassing press.

Louise was married to Hugo S. Joseph in the Long Branch house on August 17, 1917.  The American Jewish Chronicle noted, "After the ceremony, there was a reception for two hundred people."

Agnes would never marry.  She involved herself in women's causes, hosting meetings of the Woman Suffrage Party in the 73rd Street house, for instance.

Morgenthau leased the house to Mrs. Anson Dudley Bramhall in 1919.  On May 27 The Sun's society page noted, "Mrs. A. D. Bramhall will leave her present home in East Sixty-fifth street early next month.  Later she will leave with her daughter, Miss Mary S. Sheppard, for Nantucket, Mass., where they will spend the summer."

Anson Dudley Bramhall had died just three weeks prior to the article.  He had been president of the First National Bank of Jersey City.    The socially prominent Mrs. Bramhall would remain at 38 West 73rd Street until 1921 when it was sold to Milton M. Dryfoos, a partner in J. Dryfoos Son & Son, Inc., underwear manufacturers.

Dryfoos and his wife, the former Esther Wallach, had a 16-year-old son, Stephen.  They occasionally appeared in the society columns, such as when they gave an anniversary dinner and dance at the ballroom in Sherry's on March 7, 1925.

The house was sold and remodeled in 1932.  It may have been at this time that the stoop was removed.  On December 5 The New York Sun reported it had been leased to "Lillian J. Coulter and her son, Dr. George Coulter, who will occupy the house."  A series of occupants leased the house over the next few decades.  Then a renovation completed in 1980 resulted in two apartments per floor, plus two duplexes on the fourth floor and new penthouse level, unseen from the street.

Even with the loss of the stoop and doorway, the replacement windows and the unsightly window air conditioners, the former elegance of the Ottman house is apparent.

photographs by the author

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The 1891 Moritz Doob House - 44 West 73rd Street

 

photo via westsiderag.com

In 1891 developer F. G. Pourne completed a row of nine impressive stone-faced homes at 28 through 44 West 73rd Street.  Architect George H. Griebel had designed them in the Romanesque Revival style with elements of Renaissance Revival.  They were configured in an A-A-B-A-A-B-A-A-C pattern, the second story oriels of the A models and the three-story bowed bays of the B's creating an undulation of rounded forms.

44 west 73rd Street is at the far end of the row.

Rather than ending the row with a third B model, as would be expected, Griebel designed 44 West 73rd Street as an architectural step-sister.  It was narrower than the others at 17-feet wide, and the sharp angles of its full-height projecting bay starkly contrasted with the gently bowed bays and oriels of the other houses.

Things did not start out well for the house.  Only months after the new owners moved in, on June 23, 1892, The Evening Telegram reported that 44 West 73rd Street would be sold at foreclosure auction the next day.

It became home to the Moritz Doob family.  Born Moises Dub in Czechia (today the Czech Republic) in 1847, he was variously known as Moises, Moses and Moritz.  At some point after arriving in America his surname became Doob.

Doob was the principal of M. Doob's Sons & Co. at 540 Broadway, an embroideries manufacturer.  He and his wife, the former Henrietta Mork, had five children:  Mork Menasseh, Irving Ephraim, Hugo, Anah (sometimes spelled Annah) Henrietta, and Valerie Stephanie.

Moritz Doob, as he appeared on his passport.

The weddings of wealthy Jewish families often took place in high-end hotels or restaurants.  Such was the case on April 2, 1903 when Anah Henriett was married to Dr. Samuel Joseph Kopetzky at Delmonico's.  The dashing groom was a captain in the National Guard and had served in the Spanish-American War.  The New-York Daily Tribune wrote, "The rooms were prettily decorated with American Beauty roses, flowering plants and palms.  The room in which the ceremony was performed was decorated with white roses and orange blossoms."  

Still living in the 73rd Street house with their parents at the time of the wedding were 25-year-old Irving and 16-year-old Valerie.   Young ladies of Valerie's social status received their educations in private schools or abroad.  Valerie accompanied her parents to Europe for that purpose the following year.  On April 10, 1904 the New York Herald explained that the Doobs "sailed for Europe recently, where they will spend several months.  Miss Doob is to remain abroad for two years, completing her studies in Switzerland."  Valerie returned to 44 West 73rd Street in 1906.  

Like all wives of well-to-do businessmen, Henrietta involved herself in charitable work and was a member of Jewish Charity, among other causes.  She and Moritz enjoyed society entertainments and upscale restaurants.  

On the evening of December 20, 1911 the couple attended the Metropolitan Opera.  As they found their seats, Moritz helped Henrietta out of her coat.  As he did so, her gold bracelet slipped off with the garment.  It was not until they got home and she began removing her jewelry that Henrietta realized the heirloom was missing.  It is unclear whether her advertisement to recover the lost bracelet was successful in retrieving it.

Anah and Samuel Kopetzky were living in Ohio by now.  They had two children, six-year-old Karl Abraham and four-year-old Yvonne Anah.  Earlier that year Yvonne's nurse either left or was fired.  Henrietta seems to have insisted on interviewing the replacement servant who would be taking care of her granddaughter.  She placed an advertisement on August 30 that sought:

A refined German nursery governess to go to Cincinnati to take entire charge of one child of 4 years; North German preferred.  Inquire 9-12, 44 West 73d.

And as long as she was looking for a servant for her daughter, she placed an advertisement for herself.  On the same page an ad sought:

A well recommended parlor maid and waitress in private family; no chamberwork.  Inquire 9-12, 44 West 73d

Valerie was 26 years old in 1913 when her parents announced her engagement "to Dr. I. E. Friedmann, of Berlin, Germany."  Ignatz Ernst Friedmann would not remain in Berlin with his bride, instead relocating to New York City.  

But Valerie would return to Berlin--as an opera singer.  Nine years later, on September 24, 1922, a cable from the New York Herald's bureau in Berlin read, "Mme. Valerio Doob Friedman of New York and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Morris Doob, sailed for home following Mme. Doob's success in Mozart's opera, 'Il Seraglio,' at the new People's Opera."

The West 73rd Street house had been sold in March 1920.  It changed hands at least once before H. L. Gates and his wife moved in.  Gates was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1884 and studied at Ohio State and Cornell Universities.  A long-time journalist and editor, he had held positions with such far-flung newspapers as The Shanghai Times in China; The Daily Sketch, the Evening Standard; and Gazette and Graphic in London; and the San Francisco Call.  In New York he wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, was associate Sunday editor for The New York American and wrote Sunday features for The New York Times.

Gates retired from the newspaper business in 1925 to devote his time to writing fiction.  The New York Times said "He wrote novels of romance, mystery and the West.  Some of these were adapted for the movies."  The prolific author wrote 52 novels before his death while living in 44 West 73rd Street on March 12, 1937.

In 1953 the house was converted to apartments and furnished rooms.   Among the tenants in 1961 was 33-year-old Sophie Oland, who had a 1-1/2 room apartment.  She had come to New York from Puerto Rico in 1948 and had worked for a garment company since then.  

On April 30, 1961 a dogwalker discovered Sophie's body laying face down in an irrigation ditch near Flushing Airport.  There were no signs of violence, and no traces of drugs or alcohol.  The Long Island Star-Journal reported, "Police found few clues to her life in the apartment.  It contained only her clothes, a few pieces of inexpensive furniture, several religious pictures and some stuffed toys and dolls."  The theory was that "she could have died naturally in a car and a frantic 'friend' pushed her body into the marsh land," said the newspaper.

In 1964 the history of the Doob house took a bizarre turn.  That year Frances Voyticky acquired it from Jean Rudiano.  The city began foreclosure proceeding in 1971 and Diana Haslett-Rudiano, Jean Rudiano's widow, purchased it in 1975 while it was still in foreclosure.  

According to Haslett-Rudiano, it was a emotional purchase, since her late husband had owned the building.  The emotional connection was, however, not deep enough to maintain the structure.  Plans for alteration were filed in August 1983 and scaffolding and construction netting veiled the building.  And it would remain there for decades.

In 2015 a representative of the West 73rd Street Block Association complained that the house had become a "haven for rats."  The association's president, Judith Bronfman, told NY Press, "We've gotten inspections by the Fire Department, the Department of Buildings, the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, but the garbage then gets cleaned up, sort of; the minimal fines get paid, and then all that busy ineffectual activity joins the news stories in the archives."

According to a neighbor on August 24, 2021, bits of masonry had started dropping off the facade.

Rather astoundingly, at the time of this writing the scaffolding and netting are still in place, and according to a neighbor the windows are never closed, letting the rain pour in.  There is no clear evidence of on-going work.  It is a humiliating situation for the once-proud home of the wealthy Doob family.

photograph by the author

many thanks to reader Beth Goffe for suggesting this post.

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The Barnett Bros. Department Store - 289-295 Columbus Avenue

The dignified remains of the limestone ground floor peers above the regrettable storefront today.   photo via landmarkwest.org

When millionaire Edward Clark died in 1882, he was perhaps better known for his real estate development on the Upper West Side than for his career with the Singer Sewing Machine Company, the source of his fortune.  He left a large amount of undeveloped property to his one-year old grandson, Frederick Ambrose Clark.

Among the boy's holdings was the southeast corner of Ninth (later Columbus) Avenue and 74th Street.  Around 1894 a commercial structure was erected on the site and leased to the Barnett Brothers department store.   Formed by brothers E. G. Barnett, I. L. Barnett and I. H. Barnett, the store rapidly grew and on October 26, 1895 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that architect George H. Griebel had been hired to enlarge the building.  "It has not yet been decided whether to add one story to the present structure or to build an annex in the rear."  It appears that a second story was added.

On November 23, 1898 Printers' Ink wrote "There is a store in New York, at the corner of Seventy-Fourth street and Columbus avenue.  It is getting to be quite a store.  Only a few years ago it was an unimportant concern in a single store-room.  Now it occupies a building two stories high, half a block long, and fifty or sixty feet deep."

Barnett Brothers' rapid success was due mostly to its Upper West Side location where few such stores were yet operating.  "It is a better store and a bigger store each year," said Printers' Ink.  "The trade comes to it because it is convenient.  It is a good deal easier for people in the neighborhood to go to Barnett's than it is to get on a car and go three miles to Wanamaker's."

A portable sewing machine could be had for the equivalent of $60 today.  The Delineator, September 1901 (copyright expired)

Barnett Brothers was a true department store, offering not only dry goods and apparel, but housewares, china and glass, and other items.  As the neighborhood developed and the population increased, so did the store's business.  On February 15, 1902 the Record & Guide reported that the Clark Estate (Frederick, known as "Brose," was still a minor, at 19-years-old) had again hired George H. Griebel--this time to replace the two-story building with a "six story brick and stone dry-goods store."  Griebel estimated the construction costs at $350,000--a significant $10.5 million today.

The result was a handsome blend of commercial neo-Renaissance and Beaux Arts styles.  The ground floor was faced in limestone and the upper stories in beige brick.  Formal Renaissance-style pedimented enframements graced the corner openings of the second floor; while ebullient Beaux Arts wreaths and cartouches dripped from the cornice above the fourth floor.  Griebel's proposed six-story structure was, in fact, just four at completion.

Now in its impressive new building Barnett Brothers continued to expand its offerings.  In its March 1906 edition The Millinery Trade Review noted "Barnett Bros...have opened on the third floor of their well-appointed establishment a millinery department...The department presents a particularly handsome appearance, occupying about one-third of the floor, the remainder of which is devoted to the garment stocks."  Saying that there would most likely soon be a workroom for custom trimming hats, the article noted "The fittings are in mission oak and the soft green rugs make an effective setting for the many-hued millinery display."

That same month the store opened its Comestible Department, a sort of precursor of the gourmet shops in today's department stores.  The selling of food in department stores was a trend that greatly upset the city's grocers.  At a meeting of the New York Wholesale Grocers' Association Herman Rohrs growled "Pretty soon these dry goods stores will be advertising coffins free in order to induce people to buy flour.  They'll be offering inducements to people to die."

The store hosted a tasting event following the department's opening.  New-York Tribune, March 6, 1906 (copyright expired)

Just before Christmas in 1907 burglars broke into the building through an alleyway window and eluded the night watchman by hiding behind counters.  They made off with a tray of gold rings.  It was one of a string of similar burglaries in the neighborhood--a grocery store's cash register was stolen, and seven revolvers taken from an automobile supply store, for instance.  And then the crooks revisited Barnett Brothers.  On January 3, 1908 The New York Times reported "This time they got a trayful of watches, but the theft proved their undoing, for the detectives traced it to them."

The arrested thieves, John Townsend, a.k.a Red; his brother George; and William McGlynn, alias Fatty, gave full confessions (although "Red" Townsend was intoxicated at the time).  It was not the brazen deeds of the trio that amazed detectives and the public, but their ages.  "Red" was 10-years old, his brother was 8, and "Fatty" McGlynn was 9.

In June 1910 Barnett Brothers was reorganized after being purchased by the 14th Street department store Rothenberg & Co.  Now only one of the Barnetts remained as part of the organization.  The Pottery, Glass & Brass Salesman reported that the new owners proposed "completely remodeling the china and glass department and some other departments.  About $15,000 will be expended for new fixtures along."  The article added "The Barnett store is one of the largest and most up-to-date in that part of the city."

Frederick Ambrose Clark began selling off his significant Upper West Side holdings in the years following the end of World War I.  On February 26, 1921 The New York Herald reported "Barnett Bros., who have occupied the building at the southeast corner of Columbus avenue and Seventy-fourth street since its erection thirty-five years ago, have purchased the property."  Calling the building "a landmark in this section," the article placed the selling price at $350,000, or just under $5 million today.

Surprisingly, the department store survived only a few more years.  On January 27, 1925 The New York Times reported that the building "formerly occupied by Barnett Brothers Department Store...has been leased to the Flohar Realty Corporation."  The operators signed a 42-year lease and announced that the architectural firm of Sugarman & Berger to make significant changes.  "The building is to be completely altered with the addition of two stories," said The Times.

Above the street level shops was a floor of offices and showrooms on the second floor, and "studios and non-housekeeping apartments" on the upper floors.  Three of the studio apartments on the fifth floor were leased by the Federation for Child Study and converted to schoolrooms.  

The organization was the outgrowth of the Society for the Study of Child Nature, formed in 1888 by five women with the goal of studying children from "the mental, moral and physical view points."  A pioneer organization in the research of child development, it was by now supported by grants from the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.

In the meantime, the ground floor shops were leased to small businesses like "Mickey" Connor's barbershop in No. 293.   His opening night party on November 8, 1925 was a joyous affair.  The Irish-American newspaper The Advocate reported "There were song and dance in plenty and other things."

The corner shop was leased to the Seventy-fourth Street Restaurant, Inc.  The firm sold its lease in October 1930 to the Lincoln Cafeteria, Inc.  The space would see a succession of restaurants during the Depression years.  Bill's Chop house opened in 1932, and Andrew Jainke's restaurant was here in 1935 when the owner was held up at gunpoint at 2:00 on the morning on January 20.

The gunman, 22-year-old James Toomey, made off with $14 from the cash register, but not without a fight.  As Toomey rifled through the register, Jainke started to lower his raised arms.  The crook fired a single shot and Jainke pounced.  Hearing the gunshot, three policemen rushed into the restaurant.  The New York Post reported "Toomey fought desperately when the three patrolmen arrested him for violating the Sullivan law by possessing a .32-caliber revolver and for robbery."

Toomey never made it to jail.  He was taken to Flower Hospital with broken ribs and scalp lacerations.  His admittance card listed the place and circumstances of his injuries as "unknown."  He died on the operating table there.

Another renovation completed in 1943 resulted in apartments on the upper floors, along with a dental lab on the third and a gymnasium on the fourth.  The corner shop continued to house a restaurant and in the spring of 1950 it was leased to the Paddy Jordan Restaurant Corp.

Traces of the rusticated limestone ground floor exist on the 74th Street side.

Nine years later the shops were consolidated into a single store, taken by Pioneer Supermarket.  What remained of Barnett Brothers' limestone storefronts were covered over by an unflattering facade.  The upper floors, however, still hint at the department store and a time when Upper West Side ladies shopped for the latest in hats and fancy "comestibles."

many thanks to reader Joseph Miceli-Magnone for suggesting this post