Horace Ginsbern's 1941 66 West 88th Street

 

photo by Lowell Cochrane

On May 13, 1940, seven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor would pull America into World War II, The New York Times reported that the Cedot Realty Corporation had purchased "the five parcels at 62 to 70 West Eighty-eighth Street," saying that the plot "has been assembled for an apartment house."

The firm hired Horace Ginsbern to design the structure.  Born in 1902, he was the principal in the architectural firm of Horace Ginsbern & Associates and president of the Horace Realty Company, Inc.  He began designing and building apartment buildings when he was 29 years old, beginning with the Park Plaza Apartments--the first of the Art Deco apartment buildings in the Bronx.

Ginsbern's design for 66 West 88th Street would gravitate more to the "modernistic."  He forwent stepped Art Deco parapets and polychromed doors for a nearly utilitarian plan that anticipated mid-century modern architecture.  A light court separated the building into two masses, its sparse decoration limited to fenestration and the granite-paneled entrance.

Construction was completed in the fall of 1941 and the building filled with professional tenants, like Dr. Manfred Hess, who had received his medical degree in Milan in 1934; and Samuel L. Greitzer, his wife Ethel, and their son Gerald.

Born in Russia on August 10, 1905, Greitzer was brought to America at the age of one.  He graduated from City College of New York in 1927 and later earned his Ph.D. from Yeshiva University.  Greitzer's occupation in 1955 was listed as "mathematics teacher, Yeshiva University and Bronx High School of Science," but that greatly understated his stature in the mathematical community.

Samuel L. Greitzer, from the collection of Rutgers University

Samuel L. Grietzer would go on to teach at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Columbia University and Rutgers University.  Among the books he wrote or co-authored was Geometry Revisited.  He led the U.S. team at the first International Mathematical Olympiads in 1959, and would continued in that role for a decade.  Grietzer was internationally recognized within the mathematics community.

Sisters Hulda Ernestine Macarthy and Osceola Marie Adams shared an apartment by the early 1970s.  Both had fascinating careers and lives.  Natives of Albany, Georgia, Hulda was born on October 7, 1888, and Osceola was born on June 13, 1890.

The girls' father, Charles Hannibal Macarthy, was a trustee of the Colored Academy in Albany, where they received their early education.  In 1903, Hulda entered the Albany Normal School, graduating in 1907.  An accomplished pianist, she was accepted at Fisk University where she majored in music.  After graduation she studied piano at Oberlin College.

For some reason, the musician turned to nursing.  In 1923 she entered nurses' training at St. Louis City Hospital.  She would spend 35 years with the Homer G. Phillips Hospital, rising to Assistant Superintendent of Nurses, notably becoming its first Black nursing instructor.  Osceola attended her Appreciation Banquet on March 17, 1962.

At the time, Hulda's eyesight was failing.  It would worsen to the point of near blindness.  She moved to New York and Osceola's apartment at 66 West 88th Street.  Her condition continued to worsen and she suffered hearing loss and confusion (most likely early dementia), necessitating Osceola's handling of her affairs.  Hulda died in November 1976 at the age of 88.

Like her sister, Osceola attended Fisk University and then Howard University.  While there, she was among 22 founding members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, which would grow to be the largest Black women's organization in the world.  She married the head of Howard University's Chemistry department, Numa Adams, in 1915.

While her husband pursued a career in medicine, Osceola worked as a newspaper columnist, a substitute probation officer and fashion designer for a department store--all the while doing graduate work at the University of Chicago.

In 1929, Numa Adams was appointed the dean of the Howard University Medical School, the first Black dean of any American medical school.  He died on August 29, 1940.  By then, it appears that he and Osceola had separated.  She was living in New York City, having earned her Master's degree in drama in 1936, taking the stage name of Osceola Archer.  

She debuted in Between Two Worlds at the Belasco Theatre in October 1934 playing Rose Henneford, a maid.  Darlene Clark Hine wrote in the 1994 Black Women in America, "Henneford trained as a librarian, was married to a doctor whose career was hurt by discrimination.  The role was not terribly far from Archer's own life."

In 1934, Osceola Archer played in Archibald MacLeish's Panic with Orson Wells and Rose McClendon.  It was choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Virgil Thomson.  She was on tour with The Emperor Jones when her husband died.  

Osceola Adams (original source unknown)

In 1940 Osceola became acting coach and director of the American Negro Theater in Harlem.  Among her students were unknown young actors Ossie Davis, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.  In his autobiography My Song: A Memoir, Belafonte recalls that after Poitier's initial three month trial period...

the ANT's director, Osceola Archer, was disinclined to give him another trial period.  Sidney told me he felt Osceola was racist.  She was very Indian-looking, with long, black thick hair and rather light skin.  Sidney felt strongly that she liked me more than him because my skin was quite a bit lighter than his.  I never saw any evidence of this, and thought Sidney was just oversensitive and vulnerable.

In 1946, Osceola was made resident director of the Putnam County Playhouse, a post she would retain for a decade.  She continued to work in the theater, radio, commercials and television dramas.  A member of the Actor's Equity Committee on Minority Affairs, she fought racial discrimination for decades.  She received an award from the U.S.O. for distinguished service during World War II, and from the mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young, in 1974 for her contributions to American theater.  

On November 24, 1983, The New York Times announced, "Osceola Adams, an actress and teacher of dramatic arts...who also was a founder of the nation's largest black fraternal organization, died in her Upper West Side home Sunday.  She was 93 years old."

photo by Lowell Cochrane

Surprisingly, Horace Ginsbern's casement windows survive.  Resultantly, his 83-year-old building looks almost exactly as it did when the first tenants moved in in September 1941.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for requesting this post

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Horace Ginsbern's 1939 124 East 24th Street

 

Architect Horace Ginsbern was the principal in the architectural firm Horace Ginsbern & Associates and president of the Horace Realty Company, Inc.  Unintimidated by the Great Depression, he designed and built several Art Deco apartment buildings beginning in 1931 at the age of just 29 years old.

In 1939, having just completed 155-165 West 20th Street, he  started plans for another project at 116-124 East 24th Street.  This one, however, was for another development firm, Kleban & Leader.  On July 5, The New York Sun noted, "Suites range from one to three rooms.  Horace Ginsbern, who has done a good deal of work recently along this line, is the architect."

Completed before the end of the year, the six-story structure was Art Deco in style, while showing the influence of the rising Art Moderne style in the stacked, lancet-like windows, their verticality emphasized by five-story frames of bull-nosed brick.  Typically Ginsbern, the fire escapes were tucked into recesses thereby avoiding visual obtrusion.  He wrapped the corner windows, a modern innovation that provided extra natural light into the apartments.

While the apartments were small, they offered up-to-date amenities.  A brochure touted "the finest equipment available and the latest improvements for comfort and convenience."  Included were sunken living rooms, Venetian blinds, "radio outlets," and sound-proofing.  At a time when many New Yorkers still relied on ice boxes, the "fully equipped kitchens" here included "mechanical refrigerators."

There were 10 apartments per floor, ranging from studios to three rooms.  Apartments in the Modern Manner, 1939 brochure

Among the first to move in were Allan and Fannie Nadner Markoff.  Allan Markoff partnered with J. Finger in 1938 to establish the Inreklama Service.  The company solicited American advertising in Soviet Union technical publications.  Markoff was also a member of the International Workers Order, suspected of being closely affiliated with the Communist Party, and an investor in the People's Radio Foundation.  It all drew the attention of the United States Government.

The Markoffs were called to Washington D.C. in 1951 to testify before the Congressional Committee on Communist Propaganda Activities in the United States.  One issue about which Allan was grilled was a meeting in the apartment in January 1941 which was suspected to have been for the American Peace Mobilization, a Communist-funded group deemed subversive.  Markoff coolly dismissed the accusation.

It was a time when peace was desirable for everybody, and I thought it would be a nice idea to have some friends and neighbors in the house, to come together and discuss it, exchange opinion, so I sent out a letter inviting them to a social evening.

Another early resident was Marie Lewis Bowman.  She was born in Baltimore, Maryland and met her husband there.  Charles Lee Bowman was affiliated with the Union Library Association, a mail-order book firm.  When the organization relocated to New York City, so did the Bowmans.  Charles bought a controlling interest in the firm and became president.

Upon her husband's death in 1918, the indomitable Marie took his place as president of the Union Library Association.  Her decision to move into 124 East 24th Street was no doubt influenced by the company's location directly across the street at 121 East 24th Street.  Working with her there were her two sons, Lewis and Herbert, general manager and treasurer of the firm respectively.  Marie was also an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The 1939 real estate brochure featured Horace Ginsbern's Art Deco entrance on the cover.  

Resident Ruth Tillinghast lived here by mid-century.  Born on August 4, 1919 in New Canaan, Connecticut, she had a privileged education, graduating from Barnard College in 1941.  With the outbreak of World War II, she joined the United States War Department, connected with the New York Ordnance District.  She held the position through 1946.  

The following year, in March, she was hired by Nelson  A. Rockefeller as his personal secretary.  He had just been fired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from his position as the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and returned to New York City.  Never married, Tillinghast remained his trusted administrator as his career in government took on many forms.  In 1958 he was elected Governor of New York State.  

In July 1964 Ruth Tillinghast accompanied the governor to the Republican National Convention at San Francisco.  Shortly after returning home she became ill.  She never recovered.  The 45-year-old died on September 11, having worked with Nelson Rockefeller for 17 years.

In 1966 the Rolling Stones posed in drag as WWII British army nurses in front of 124 East 24th Street for the cover of "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?"  photograph by Jerry Schatzberg

Living here in the third quarter of the 2oth century was French-born Eugene Voit.  He had taken a job as office manager in the then-new New Yorker Hotel in 1930.  He rose to general manager in 1951 and would eventually hold that position in the Plaza, the Savoy and New York Hilton hotels.  One can imagine the trove of stories he could have shared with his neighbors about the famous celebrities and millionaires he met over the decades.

Although the casement windows, important to Ginsbern's design, have been replaced with unsympathetic but more energy-efficient models, 124 East 24th Street remains a handsome example of the architect's work.  It is easily overlooked tucked away from general foot traffic.

photos by the author

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Horace Ginsbern's 1938 155 and 165 West 20th Street

 

Horace Ginsbern was, apparently, a take-charge sort of man.  The principal in the architectural firm Horace Ginsbern & Associates, he was also the president of the Horace Realty Company, Inc.  And then, in 1938, he formed the  155 West Twentieth Street, Inc., with himself as president.  The two latter firms purchased the 23,500 square-foot vacant lot at the northeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 20th Street.  The New York Times, on March 12, 1938, reported, "Plans for erecting a modern apartment house on a plot in the Chelsea area were announced yesterday."  Ginsbern, expectedly, would be the architect for his project.

Construction progressed at lightening speed.  Eight months after Ginsbern purchased the plot, his building was completed.  And on November 23 The Sun reported that all 120 apartments--ranging from one-and-a-half to four rooms--were rented.  They were marketed as having "all modern conveniences, 24-hour doorman service, dropped living rooms, cross ventilation, roof deck."   Seven stores lined the Seventh Avenue side.

Ginsbern's six-story apartment house (it was, actually, two identical buildings, at 155 and 165 West 20th Street), was a near match to his 1212 Grand Concourse, erected a year earlier.  Faced in yellow brick, its Art Deco elements, like stylized chevron patterns, were executed in brick (possibly a Depression Era cost savings).  Ginsbern wrapped the corner windows, a modern innovation, and placed the fire escapes on the Seventh Avenue side within a recess and on 20th Street within light courts--making them less obtrusive and creating dimension.  The only non-brick ornaments were the cast concrete Art Deco pendants along the parapet.

Among the initial residents was Alex J. Vincent.  On the night of November 29, 1938 he walked to the Chelsea Chop House at 248 Eighth Avenue for dinner.  Suddenly, patrons heard a gunshot and a bullet struck 35-year-old Henry A. Schickling in the thigh.  

Police questioned the customers and discovered the shot had come from the revolver of George Paige, who managed a paper company nearby on Eighth Avenue.  He had a permit for the firearm and explained he was "shifting his belt holster from one side to the other when the weapon, in some unexplained manner, was discharged," as reported by the Long Island Star-Journal.

An ambulance arrived to take Schickling to the hospital.  Alex Vincent announced that he, too, had been shot.  The newspaper said that he "was examined by an ambulance surgeon, who could find no wound."  Nevertheless, the 46-year-Vincent insisted he had been shot.  The Long Island Star-Journal reported he "finally consented to go home."

Also among the first residents were Clyde Smith Thompson and his wife, Olive Bishop.  Born in Cincinnati, Thompson was the son of a newspaper publisher and a descendant of Smith Thompson, Secretary of the Navy under President James Monroe and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was a self-made man, starting out in business as a bellboy and eventually founding the Thompson-Carroll advertising agency in Cleveland, Ohio.  He was now in charge of the outdoor advertising accounts of the J. Walter Thompson Company.

By placing the fire escapes in light courts, Ginsbern preserved the visual integrity of the main facade.

Despite hard economic times, the building remained fully occupied in 1941.  A typical 3-room apartment that year rented for $85, just under $1,500 per month today.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the residents of the two buildings came and went, drawing little attention to themselves or the buildings.  There was a tragic fire in 155 West 20th Street in June 1966, however.  It was confined to the apartment of Catherine Alice Dineen, a registered nurse who had been supervisor of a Manhattan chest clinic since 1956.  Dineen was badly burned and was taken to St. Vincent Hospital where she died nearly six months later at the age of 55 on December 1.

In 1975 Greek immigrant 24-year-old Paul Katritsis lived here.  He worked with the Tidal Marine International Corporation, a Greek-based firm that purchased and operated oil tankers.  That year the firm was charged with "misrepresenting the price of oil tanks to obtain massive loans for subsidiaries of Tidal Marine."  The New York Times reported that the "fraudulent scheme...allegedly obtained bank loans of more than $60 million."  Among the 11 people indicted was Paul Katritsis, who was sentenced to four months in prison and three years of probation.

Also found guilty in absentia, "as a fugitive" according to The New York Times, was the firm's president, Charalambos Amanatides, who was said to be living in Greece.  He was discovered in London by an FBI agent in 1982 and extradited to the United States where he was sentenced to seven years in prison.  Somewhat surprisingly, when released on parole in March 1983 he moved into 155 West 20th Street (quite possibly the apartment of Paul Katritsis).  

On the afternoon of July 5, 1985, Amanatides was standing on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 97th Street when he was shot in the back and killed.  The bullet, fired from street level, passed through his body.  No one claimed to have seen or heard the shooting.

But Katritsis and Amanatides were not typical.  The residents of 155 and 165 West 20th Street continue to draw little attention.  Horace Ginsbern's striking Art Deco building, on the other hand, deserves its share.

photograph by the author

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