The Lost Hoffstatter & Revillon Frères Bldg - 668-670 Fifth Avenue

To the left of the new building is the William K. Vanderbilt Jr mansion.  The Brickbuilder, November 11, 1916 (copyright expired)

On March 23, 1913, The New York Times began an article saying, "The business invasion of Fifth Avenue north of Forty-second Street goes on ruthlessly."  Sumptuous mansions were rapidly being replaced by commercial buildings.  The article reported, "Workmen last week began tearing down the big Gallatin house on the southwest corner of Fifty-third Street, purchased a short time ago by Michael Dreicer for over $1,000,000.  Two six-story business buildings are to be erected on the 50-foot Fifth Avenue frontage."  

Michael Dreicer was the son of Jacob Dreicer, who opened his jewelry business in 1868.  They are credited for bringing cut gems into fashion, surpassing pearls.  The younger Dreicer had now branched into real estate development with the Dreicer Realty Company.   He hired Henry Otis Chapman to design the side-by-side buildings.  Construction would cost $130,000 to erect, or about $4.4 million in 2026 terms.

Chapman's Francois I Revival design was intended to harmoniously co-exist on the block with the magnificent Petite Chateau, erected for William K. and Alva Vanderbilt, and 666 Fifth Avenue, the Willie K. and "Birdie" Oelrichs Vanderbilt mansion.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide approved, calling 668-670 Fifth Avenue "one of the most attractive on the avenue, built in the Francois Premier style of architecture."

Like the two surviving mansions on the block, the buildings were faced in limestone.  The first and second floors of 668 Fifth Avenue were dominated by a vast, double-height show window capped by a French Gothic header and crocket.  Grouped windows at the third and fourth floors sat below square-headed drip moldings.  The steep mansard was fronted by a French Gothic dormer and crowned with lacy cast iron cresting.

The corner building continued many of those motifs--the double-height show window and the grouped openings at the third and fourth floors, for instance.  A row of ornate dormers lined the mansard on the 53rd Street side, and identical  rooftop cresting visually unified the structures.

No. 668 had been leased before the first shovel broke ground.  Nearly two weeks before The New York Times article, on March 10, 1913, The Furniture Trade Review reported that Theodore Hofstatter & Co. had "closed negotiations" for leasing the building "for a term of twenty-one years."  The article noted, "Hofstatter & Co., are in the interior decorating and furniture business, are now located at 589 Fifth avenue."

The buildings were completed in 1914 and very quickly the Hofstatter Building was the center of excitement.  On May 19, 1914, an alarm "brought the firemen to the home of Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., at 666 Fifth Avenue," reported The New York Times.  The Vanderbilts were at their summer estate and heavy smoke was seen pouring out of one of the chimneys.

The Vanderbilts' caretaker notified the responding firefighters that there was no fire.  "About ten minutes later the blaze was discovered in the building occupied by Hofstatter & Co.," said the article.  "Decorators had been working on the fifth floor, and in some manner, a curtain became ignited."  Happily, the fire was extinguished before it could spread.  The New York Times said, "More than $500,000 worth of art treasures are in the building."

It would be nearly a year before the corner building was leased.  On February 6, 1915, the Record & Guide reported that Revillon Frères had leased "the new six-story building" for 21 years.  Revillon Brothers established its fur company in 1723.  Now known as Revillon Frères, it was a leading retailer and manufacturer of luxury furs and accessories.

The New York Times, September 26, 1915 (copyright expired)

Both firms sublet space in their buildings, with most of the tenants being in the arts or decorating business.  One notable exception was the Sonora Phonograph Corp.  On July 25, 1915, the New York Herald reported that the firm "has leased salons at 668 Fifth Avenue adjoining the Vanderbilt residence, for demonstration rooms."  

A Sonora Phonograph ad in December 1915 depicted the entire blockfront. The Pharmaceutical Era (copyright expired)

Also in 668 Fifth Avenue at the time was the Kent-Shmayon Galleries.  The firm dealt in imported art and antiques, like Persian faience, rare manuscripts, Chinese porcelains, and Spanish, Italian and English antique furniture.  Not long after its opening, it was the target of two slick thieves.  On December 1, 1914, Joseph Hess and "another well-dressed man" entered the Kent-Shmayon Galleries "to look at some antiques," reported The New York Times, "and carried off jewelry valued at $7,900."  (The heist would equal $261,000 today.)  Hess, who was known to police as "the man with many aliases," was captured in Indianapolis on January 6, 1915.

Unfortunately, the war in Europe disrupted the firm's ability to import goods.  On February 27, 1915, The Evening Post reported, "The Kent-Shmavon Galleries, 668 Fifth Avenue, have been forced by present conditions, due to the war, to close their galleries."  A six-day liquidation auction began on March 1.  The article said, "Altogether there are nearly fourteen hundred items now on exhibition."

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On March 2, the New-York Tribune reported on the first day's sales, saying, "Lovers and students of Eastern art filled the large ground floor salon."  The article noted, "Lillian Russell was an interested and liberal buyer.  She obtained, among other things, an Asia Minor silk rug."  Other items that were sold that day was a "Persian carpet of Kerman weave" which sold for the equivalent of $19,500 today, and a "Persian Goerevan carpet with a camel's hair field" that brought nearly the same amount.

The Bourgeois Galleries replaced the Kent-Shmavon Galleries in the building.  The art dealers catered to wealthy patrons.  Somewhat ironically, one of its first exhibitions was the private collection of Albert Eugene Gallatin's paintings and graphic art.  Certainly many of the artworks had hung in his family's mansion on the site.

The gallery's firm reputation did not require anything other than a dignified, understated ad.  The Arts, August-September 1921 (copyright expired)

Other tenants in the buildings in the 1920s, along with Hoffstatter and Revillon Frères, of course, were Stair & Andrew and the Kingore art gallery.  Stair & Company, which occupied space on the fourth floor of 668 Fifth Avenue, specialized in old English furniture, paneling, tapestries, and antique mantelpieces. 

By the mid-1920s, John D. Rockefeller Jr. owned 668 and 670 Fifth Avenue.  On February 16, 1928, The New York Times reported that he was erecting a six-story building on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 54th Street and that it "will be occupied under lease by Revillon Frères, furriers."  The firm was replaced by Raymond & Whitcomb, Inc., which made "extensive alterations," according to The New York Times on June 6, 1929.

Raymond & Whitcomb, Inc. was a travel agency.  In 1934, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania loaned the firm eight items from its collection of Central American relics to display.  It did not end well.  Three items, a gold sacrificial cup, two Zapotec funerary urns, and a solid gold breastplate, were displayed in the show window.  On June 5, The New York Times reported, "A stone hurled through the show window of Raymond-Whitcomb, Inc...at some time early yesterday morning, enabled a thief to obtain a rare Mayan relic worth $5,000."  The stolen relic was the sacrificial gold cup.  The stone that smashed the window also broke one of the urns.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In October 1938, John D. Rockefeller Jr. filed plans to replace the buildings with "a new nine-story office building," as reported by The New York Times.  Something derailed those plans, however.  Two years later, Theodore Hoffstatter & Co. moved to its own newly built structure at 9 East 56th Street.  Lanz Inc., took over the lease of 668 Fifth Avenue for its clothing store.

In June 1945, Doubleday, Doran, Inc. opened a bookstore in the basement, first and second floors of 670 Fifth Avenue.  The following year, Russell Stover Candies took over the first and second floors next door.  

The Doubleday book shop was the scene of a raid on August 8, 1946.  Responding to a complaint by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, four plainclothes detectives entered and "removed 130 copies of Edmund Wilson's book of short stores, 'Memoirs of Hecate County,'" as reported by The New York Times.  Blotter entries at the West 54th and East 51st Street station houses called the books, "salacious and lascivious literature."  While the Society called the book "obscene," The New York Times said, "virtually all reviewers regarded it as a serious literary work."

Just before demolition in 1955, the Russell Stover signage covered the 2nd-floor show window of No. 688 and the iron cresting was gone.  Supreme Court evidence photo May 1957.

In 1955, Russell Stover Candies announced it would be moving into the Gotham Hotel.  The move was no doubt prompted by the sale of 668 and 670 Fifth Avenue for redevelopment.  On February 13, The New York Times reported that a 36-story office building designed by Carson & Lundin would replace the buildings from 52nd to 53rd Street.  Demolition of the structures began that April.  

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for prompting this post

The 1932 Mercantile Library - 17 East 47th Street

 

A For Sale sign hangs on the facade in 2023.

In the 1880s, Cornelius Vanderbilt DeForest and his wife Catherine lived in the high-stooped brownstone at 17 East 47th Street.  They were followed in the house by Jordan L. Mott and his wife, the former Katherine Jerome Purdy, and then by J. Hopkins Smith, Jr. and his wife, Pauline Morton.  The Smiths had been married in 1906, after having met at the White House.  Pauline's father was Paul Morton, Secretary of the Navy.

At the time of the Smiths' wedding, the Mercantile Library was located in Clinton Hall (the former Astor Place Opera House) at 13 Astor Place.   The venerable institution had opened in February 1821 at 49 Fulton Street and moved into the Astor Street building in 1854.  It was established as a reading room and library for young clerks, just beginning their business careers.  By the time of the Astor Place move, it boasted a library of 120,000 volumes.

In 1915 J. Hopkins Smith, Jr. had the East 47th Street residence renovated for business purposes, and in 1932 sold it to the Mercantile Library as the site of its new home.  The trustees  demolished the old brownstone and hired architect Henry Otis Chapman to design its replacement.

Completed before the end of the year, the eight story, neo-Renaissance style structure was clad in white marble.  The New York Times said it "shows a simple classic tendency, in keeping with the purposes for which it will be used."  

Two Renaissance style doorways with broken pediments and urns flanked a double-height window.  Between the second and third floors, the library's name was engraved into the marble, flanked by two large rosettes.  A row of elaborately carved rosettes and pendants ran below the third floor cornice.  The mid-section featured four-story fluted piers, rosettes, and wreaths.  Below the delicate terminal cornice was a border of intricately carved ribbons and swags.  

On September 29, 1932, The Daily Star reported that the building was nearly completed and moving day was scheduled for December 15.  The logistics of "seeing that 250,000 volumes are treated kindly by the moving men" were under the control of librarian Florence Garing.  The article said, "For several weeks she has been as busy choosing furniture, planning decorations, determining grain of marble and generally supervising the household--or should one say, 'libraryhold''--arrangements for the new home of the many books and records of New York's second oldest book-lending institution."

The New York Times explained that the first floor would house the general reception room and delivery desk.  "The second floor will be used for reading rooms which, in design and furnishings, will be suggestive more of a club than a commercial library," said the article.  The third floor held the librarian's office and the trustee room, and the upper floors were devoted to book stacks.

A housewarming was held on January 7, 1933.  To use the library, one had to be a member.  But, as had been the case in 1821, the membership fee was nominal.  In his report on March 17, 1935, Arthur G. Peacock, president of the Mercantile Library Association, noted, "Each member costs the library two or three times what he pays," and cautioned, "this cannot go on forever."  The library relied heavily on support from the Clinton Hall Association of New York.

By the 1970s, the membership fee was $24 a year.  On October 20, 1975, Thomas Lask of The New York Times described what that $24 entitled the members to:

Smack in the middle of bustling Manhattan, right off Fifth Avenue, in fact, is an oasis of calm, where one can relax in an armchair in clublike surroundings, with a statue of Shakespeare brooding over the fireplace, can sip a cup of tea while scanning The Times Literary Supplemental or The National Geographic, and where, at the end of the stay, he or she can borrow the latest best seller, a fistful of whodunits or a book on a subject being researched.

When Lask wrote the article, the Mercantile Library and the Clinton Hall Association were experiencing financial trouble.  Around 1971, he said, "the inflationary pinch began to be felt severely."  Richard T. Brice, president of the board, said the library would "like to increase its membership to 2,500," from the current 1,400.

Among the members at the time were brothers Paul and David Hofstein.  The men would meet here each Monday morning and, according to The New York Times journalist Kathleen Teltsch, would "spend the morning contentedly reading from the library's rich store of books" in the members' lounge.  David was a tax consultant and Paul worked for the post office.  Their Mondays were free.

The Mercantile Library began a lecture series to increase income.  On March 12, 1975, for instance, George T. Simon gave a lecture with slides and recordings on the life and career of bandleader Glenn Miller.  

In 1982 the Mercantile Writers' Studio was added, described by The New York Times as including, "well-lighted individual spaces, storage units for typewriters and manuscripts, a reference collection, and automatic membership in the library."   The 14 studio spaces were leased for three months at a time for $100.  By then annual membership dues in the library proper had risen to $45.

The Hofstein brothers' decades-long tradition of Monday mornings in the Mercantile Library ended with Paul's death at the age of 77 on May 16, 1986.  On December 13 that year, David donated a glass and mahogany wall clock in his brother's memory.  He told The New York Times reporter Kathleen Teltsch, "The old clock in the library's reading room had simulated chimes, which seemed incongruous and did not really belong there.  I wanted the clock to make a statement as a remembrance of my brother's love of books and the world he brought me into."

The Mercantile Library, known familiarly as "the Merc," continued to experience fiscal problems.  On September 6, 1989, The New York Times reported that it had "stopped its services as a circulating library in mid-August, although its members still have the use of the gracious second-floor reading room, adorned with busts of eminent literary figures and illuminated by 14 chandeliers."  The article said that after the increase in yearly dues, membership had fallen from 1,600 to 420.  At the time, the library's operating budget was $300,000 a year, and its income was $200,000.

Donations funded two renovations.  A $100,000 renovation of the first floor in 1998 by the architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Belle removed old linoleum and fluorescent lighting.  The following year the marble facade was cleaned, and in 2001 the second floor reading room was refreshed.  Nevertheless, library officials recognized, as Arthur G. Peacock had warned in 1935, "this cannot go on forever."

On May 23, 2008, Eric Konigsberg wrote in The New York Times that the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction (the name the organization took in 2005) "is in the process of selling its building at 17 East 47th Street...and will be shutting down in the coming weeks."  (In fact, the Clinton Hall Association was the seller, having held title since 1932.)  The following month journalist Lily Koppel reported on the packing process, saying somewhat wistfully, "Above an ornate iron staircase, marble busts of past presidents and members watch over the reading room of the Mercantile Library, with its molded fireplace and grand piano.  It is an elegant space befitting one of the three private libraries remaining in New York City."  She noted, "Many of the library's nonfiction holdings have been sold off and donated, like books on maritime history and botany."

The Mercantile Library moved to Brooklyn.  The marble building on East 47th Street still dons a sign offering the property for sale.  Recently architect George Boyle submitted plans for the Clinton Hall Association for the proposed The Merc Hotel.  The renovated building would rise 16 floors, the additional eight stories set back from the original cornice.

George Boyle Architect's rendering of the proposed renovations.  via skyscrapercenter.com

photographs by the author

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The 1893 Francis M. Burdick House - 633 West 115th Street

 

In 1892 Columbia University professors Francis M. Burdick and Munroe Smith began construction on their side-by-side homes at 633 and 635 West 115th Street, respectively.  They had purchased the vacant 25-foot-wide plots a year earlier in anticipation of the university's proposed move from Midtown to Morningside Heights.  (The proposed site of the campus was just one block to the east.)  

Architect Henry Otis Chapman designed the two mirror-image houses in the Colonial Revival style.   Completed in 1893, the four-story homes were faced in yellow brick and trimmed in brown terra cotta.  Chapman gave them striking neo-Federal doorways with leaded, stained glass sidelights and magnificent fanlights.

Edwin Burrage Child painted Burdick's portrait in 1916.  from the collection of Columbia University.

Born in De Ruyter, New York in 1845, Francis Marion Burdick had a varied career.  After receiving his law degree in 1872, he became a member of the Utica, New York law firm Beardsley, Burdick and Beardsley.  He was the mayor of Utica in 1882-1883.  Five years later, upon the opening of Cornell University's law college, Burdick was among its faculty members.  And in 1891, the year he and Smith purchased the 115th Street properties, he was appointed as Columbia University's first Theodore Dwight Professor of Law.

Burdick married Sarah Underhill Kellogg on June 8, 1875.  The couple had a son, Charles, and three daughters, Anna, Katherine, and Flora.

Until 633 West 115th Street lost its stoop in 2019, the houses were perfect mirror images.

Sarah and her next door neighbor, Emma Gertrude Smith, apparently became close friends (the fact that there were no other houses on the block at the time no doubt helped foster the relationship).  On March 24, 1901, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "Mrs. F. M. Burdick, assisted by Mrs. Munroe Smith, has issued invitations for a tea on Saturday, April 6, at her residence, No. 633 West 115th street."

In the meantime, Frank wrote numerous legal works, including The Law of Partnership, The Essentials of Business Law, and Selected Cases on the Law of Partnership.  He was appointed a member of the Committee of Fourteen (founded in 1905 to reform liquor laws), and Commissioner of Uniform Laws for the State of New York in 1907.

In 1911, four years prior to his retirement, Burdick sold 633 West 115th Street to the Phil Omega Building Corporation of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.  Now the Alpha Chi Rho House, its upper floors were leased to fraternity alumni, and the lower floors used as the clubhouse.

On July 12, 1913, the week-long First International Exposition of the Moving Picture Art and Allied Trades opened in the new Grand Central Palace.  Among the events was a talent search, during which aspiring silent film stars had a chance to display their acting skills.  Among them was George Beak, a resident of the Alpha Chi Rho House.  Moving Picture News said succinctly that he "showed adaptable qualities, under direction."  (Unfortunately for George, film stardom eluded him.)

A year after he graduated, Walter Funcke lived in the Alpha Chi Rho House, and took on the duties of managing the annual Variety Show of the university's Players Club.  It turned out to be a frustrating job.  On December 6, 1917, an article in the Columbia Spectator began, "Delay on the part of the undergraduate body to don its thinking cap and produce manuscripts and songs for the 1918 Variety Show has caused the Players Club to issue another urgent call for prospective playwrights and songsmiths."

Earlier that year, the house had been the scene of a more serious event.  America entered World War I on April 4, 1917, prompting many university men to leave school and enlist.  A month later, on May 8, the Columbia Spectator reported, "Alpha Chi Rho held a farewell party last night at the chapter house, 633 West 115th Street, for its members who may leave for Plattsburgh or other government service in the near future."  The light-hearted gathering included entertainments and "ended with a snake dance through 115th Street."

In 1927 the former Burdick house was sold to the Korean Methodist Church and Institute, established six years earlier.  Like the fraternity, it leased rooms on the upper floors to members.

While the door had been replaced by 1941, the entrance and stoop were otherwise intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in 1934 was Frank Lee, described by The New York Sun as "a prominent Chinese [sic] importer."  In March 1934 his brother-in-law, Dr. Chang Sel Kim, asked him to stay at his apartment with him at night.  Kim, who held degrees from the University of Korea and Johns Hopkins, said "he was in fear of threats...made by a man who held some correspondence which the physician considered of great value," reported The New York Sun.  

Frank Lee complied, sleeping over in Kim's bedroom while the doctor slept on the sofa.  On the night of March 14, according to Lee, the two played cards until 2 a.m., then went to bed.  "Several times during the night he came in, and then went back to bed," he told officials.  When Lee got up the next morning, he smelled gas.  He rushed to turn off the stove burners and open the windows, but it was too late.  The mysterious circumstances that drove Dr. Kim to suicide were never uncovered.

Korean immigrants faced decided discrimination.  Among the residents in 1936 was Tu Jung, a member of the New York Korean Society.  He became concerned when Chang Soo Lee, a Korean houseboy, was accused of poisoning relatives of his White Plains employer.  The young man had been arrested and held without bail, despite his insistence that "he was ignorant of poisons and chemistry," according to The New York Sun on October 20.  Tu Jung traveled to Westchester County, telling officials he "wanted to find out if Lee had received a square deal and if there was anything he needed," according to the article.  He was refused permission to see the prisoner.

Three months before America entered World War II, 37-year-old resident Young Ho Kown, a cook, attempted to do his part in the war effort.  On September 4, 1941, he tested his helium-inflated "aircraft dirigible helicopter" at Roosevelt Field.  He had invested six years and $6,000 in the invention.  The Nassau Daily Review-Star said, "there were newspaper and newsreel photographers, newspapermen, airport officials and workers on hand" to witness the launch, "but Young, known as Charlie, would have been much happier if the engine of the odd-appearing plane hadn't balked."  Despite the failed test, Kown was undeterred.  He promised another ground test would be made "to be followed by an air test by a licensed pilot."

Following the country's entrance into the war, on January 25, 1942 The New York Times reported, "American Koreans, as 'the champion Jap-haters of the world,' are taking an active part in United States war work."  The article cited an announcement that the Korean Church and Institute had made the previous day.  A fund-raising drive had resulted in pledges of $9,000 for the Korean Army and more than $2,000 in defense bonds had been purchased.  The article noted, "many of the 10,000 Koreans in the United States have offered their services as trained linguists to ferret out the plans of the Japanese on the air waves."

In 1978 the Korean Methodist Church and Institute shared space in the building with the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.  That year, on November 26, The Journal News reported that artist Richard Mayhew was one of more than 70 artists to be selected "by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for inclusion in its 30th annual Hassam Purchase Fund Exhibition now underway at its headquarters at 633 West 115th Street."

It was around that time that Henry Otis Chapman's striking neo-Federal doorway was brutally altered.  The fluted columns were removed, the leaded sidelights and transoms covered over, and the door and frame painted teal.

photograph by Mx. Granger

In 2019 a renovation was initiated that included restoration and repair of the facade.  Among the alterations made, the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to grade.  To compensate space-wise, a panel was installed between the doorway and fanlight.  Happily, the exquisite leaded glass was intact and restored.  The absence of the Ionic columns, however, is sorely apparent.

photographs by the author

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The 1893 Munroe Smith House - 635 West 115th Street

 

In 1896 Columbia University left its collection of Midtown buildings for a new campus in the remote Morningside Heights district.  The move created problems for fraternities and academic clubs, which had costly clubhouses downtown, and for faculty and staff.  Two Columbia professors, however, were far ahead of the game.

In 1891 Francis M. Burdick and Munroe Smith acquired two 25-foot-wide plots on the undeveloped block of West 115th Street, between Riverside Drive and Broadway.  The site was just one block west of the proposed campus.  The educators hired architect Henry Otis Chapman to design mirror-image houses at 633 and 635 West 115th Street.  Construction began in 1892 and was completed the following year.  

The handsome Colonial Revival style houses were faced in yellow brick and trimmed in terra cotta.  The design was dominated by the striking Federal-style arched doorways with leaded and stained glass sidelights and exquisite fanlights.  Each of the four stories was defined by a terra cotta bandcourse.  The houses shared a delicate dentiled cornice.

Edmund Munroe Smith, who went professionally by Munroe Smith, moved his family into 635 West 115th Street.  He and his wife, the former Emma Gertrude Huidekoper, had one daughter, Gertrude Munroe, who was two years old at the time.

Munroe Smith from the collection of the Columbia University Archives.

Smith was a very well-educated man.  He graduated from Amherst Collect in 1874, earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1877, re-enrolled in Amherst in 1879, and received his J.U.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1880.  That year he was hired at Columbia University as an instructor in history and Roman law.  When he and his family moved into the 115th Street house, he was a full professor of Roman law and comparative jurisprudence.

The Smiths' large house afforded them the ability to take in other Columbia educators.  By 1906 Dr. Henry Rogers Seager, a professor of political economy, lived with the family.  Born in Kiev, Russia, he earned his Ph.D at the University of Michigan in 1890.  Both he and Munroe Smith were members of the Century Association, the membership of which was composed of authors, artists, and "amateurs of letters and fine arts."  

Henry Rogers Seager, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Another Columbia professor, John Bates Clark, and his wife, the former Myra A. Smith (no relation to their landlord), were listed here by 1909.  Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1847, Clark taught economics.  His controversial views about capitalism had softened by the time he boarded with the Smiths.  Early on he had been a critic of capitalism, favoring instead German Socialism.  His views eventually evolved to make him a leading proponent of capitalism.

All three men wrote extensively.  They were the authors of academic books, articles and monographs in their respective areas.

The professors would have to find alternative lodging in 1910.  The Smiths moved out in 1910, and an advertisement in the New York Herald on October 2 offered the unfurnished house for rent.  It touted "11 rooms, 3 baths, immediate possession, refined residential section."

The house became home to Edward Purcell Slevin, his wife, the former Josephine Mary Hecker, and their daughter Elizabeth.  The couple's country home, East Clive, was in West Orange.  Another daughter, Paula, had been married on January 11 that year to Stephen Valentine Farrelly.

Only months after moving into 635 West 115th Street, Josephine died on March 15, 1911.  Edward remained in the house for years.

Then, on October 6, 1921, the New York Herald announced that "the Catholics of Columbia University" had purchased 635 West 115th Street "for occupancy as the Newman Club, an organization of Catholic students, who will occupy it after extensive alterations are completed."  The article added, "The present plans embody an assembly hall, committee meeting rooms, space for informal dances and other features, besides a library and reading room."

A chapel was installed in the basement level, where mass was said every day and twice on Sundays.  On the parlor floor was a "large comfortable reception room" where lectures were sometimes given, as well as social events.  The reading room and library were on the second floor.  Father H. F. Riley of the Paulist Fathers, the club's chaplain, resided in the house.

On April 7, 1922, the Columbia Alumni News reported on the opening of Newman Hall.  The article noted, "An inspection of the newly opened club house was made under the guidance of Father Riley, the resident Chaplain."  The Handbook to Catholic Historic New York City explained in 1927:

Newman Hall is the center for Catholic students.  The Newman Club of Columbia University was established in 1902.  Its headquarters at No. 635 West 115th Street is a meeting place for the members of the Newman Club in and around New York City.

The Newman Club remained until the early Depression years, selling the property to Armic Restaurant, Inc., which leased it.  Living here in 1938 was John M. Kelly, chief supervisor in the Department of Markets.  Kelly had been a city employee since 1920.  Two years later, Angelina Geminiani was leasing the house.  Living with her were her 17-year-old daughter, Regina, and two boarders, John and Eleanor Morgan.

The house in 1941 appeared little different than it does today.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1946 Columbia University purchased the former Smith house.  It became the center of the school's Modern China Research Project in 1958.  Professor Howard L. Boorman, its director, said that year, "One phase of this project is to compile a biographic dictionary of Chinese personalities as a basic reference tool to enable scholars to fill more readily the research gap for the transition period between 1911 and 1949."  The Modern China Research Project was still here as late as 1967.

Trouble came to Columbia University in the spring of 1972 when anti-war protestors shut down the campus.  On May 4, 1972, The New York Times reported, "Black and Latin students continued their occupation of Lewisohn Hall and an off-campus brownstone at 635 West 115th Street, which is owned by the university."  Over a week later, on May 13, the newspaper reported that the house had been "voluntarily vacated by the black and Latin students."

On the same day, the N.Y. Amsterdam News reported, "The University President has also agreed to an extension of the CEEP Program through 1974 and to provide the university facilities at 635 West 115th for the exclusive use of the CEEP Program."  That project, the Community Educational Exchange Program, "provides compensatory education for Harlem residents," as explained by The New York Times.

Later the building became home to the university's Office of Environmental Stewardship.  Appropriately, in November 2007 it was one of two Columbia buildings to receive a "green roof."  Nilda Mesa, Director of Environmental Stewardship explained in December that year, "Grass and plants growing on green roofs take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into oxygen, helping cool temperatures in the hottest months and cleaning the air supply."

While its fraternal twin next door has been slightly altered, 635 West 115th Street is remarkably intact, including its wonderful 1893 doorway.

 photographs by the author

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