Robert Maynicke's 1906 Yorkville Bank -- 1511 Third Avenue

 

image via realestate.union-investment.com

Reinhold Van Der Emde was born in Germany on March 17, 1842.  After studying the pharmaceutical trade in Switzerland, he arrived in New York City in 1869.  The New York Times later said he, "got a position in Dietel's drug store.  He was thrifty, and soon started a business of his own on the Bowery."

Van Der Emde's drugstore thrived.  In 1893, he and Richard H. Adams founded the Yorkville Bank, erecting a building on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and 85th Street within the neighborhood that was greatly populated by German and Hungarian immigrants.  Reinhold Van Der Emde became the bank's president.  The New York Times recalled in 1909, "The institution was successful from the first."

So successful was the Yorkville Bank, in fact, that on July 30, 1904, the Record & Guide reported, "Robert Maynicke...is preparing plans for the new building to be erected by the Yorkville Bank."  (Van Der Emde's choice of the architect may have been slightly influenced by the fact that Maynicke was also German-born.)  He filed plans on January 7, 1905 for the $125,000 structure (about $4.47 million in 2024).  

The project moved fast.  On the same day of the Record & Guide's article, The Evening Post reported, "On Monday next the bank will be moved temporarily to Eighty-third Street and Third Avenue," and a month later, on February 4, the Record & Guide announced, "The old buildings are now being demolished and excavating will begin next week."

The new Yorkville Bank building was completed within ten months and its doors were opened on December 18, 1905.  Maynicke had produced a handsome Italian Renaissance banking palazzo of four floors.  A graceful arcade ran along the sidewalk, its tall arched openings separated by full-height pilasters.  A prominent intermediate cornice introduced the upper floors.  Maynicke carried on the Renaissance motif by treating the openings with terra cotta pediments, classical metopes between the third- and fourth-floor windows, and dentils below the stone cornice.

It appears that Van Der Emde gave Maynicke input.  On June 10, 1909, The Pharmaceutical Era wrote, "The bank's new building at Third avenue and 85th street, which is generally looked upon as a model for banking houses, was designed under the direction of Mr. van der Ende."

The upper floor offices were leased, mostly, to real estate and legal firms.  Among the first were realtors Nathan H. Weil, Arthur G. Muhlker, here in 1906, and the F. Dornberger Realty Co., which moved in in August 1909.

The F. Dornberger Realty Co. was headed by Frederick Dornberger.  Between 1:30 and 2:00 on the morning of October 11, 1910, he exited the subway at Eighth Avenue and 110th Street.  Dornberger witnessed a woman going through the pockets of an elderly, intoxicated man within the hansom cab sitting at the curb.  He demanded she stop.  Dornberger told a judge a few hours later, "She told me to 'beat it while my shoes were good and mind my own business.'"  

When the realtor continued to interfere with her larceny, she stabbed him with her hatpin, which pierced his cheek and tongue.  She then told the cabbie to drive as fast as he could.  Undeterred, Dornberger jumped into another cab, told the driver to follow her, all the while yelling, "Stop, thief!"

The commotion caught the attention of Patrolman Boylan who stopped the vehicles and took everyone in.  The next morning Lillian Harrison, described by The Sun as, "a handsomely gowned, golden-haired woman," and Dornberger faced off in the Harlem Court.  (The Sun noted, "the old man had promised to appear, but he failed to do so.)  Although Lillian denied the charges and the would-be victim was not in court, The Sun reported, "Magistrate Breen, however, was impressed so by Dornberger's story that he held her in $1,600 bail."

Reinhold Van Der Emde died in 1909.  August Zinsser, Jr. replaced him as president and continued the bank's policy of serving the mostly German neighborhood.  On February 27, 1910, for instance, The New York Times reported that the bank had partnered with Public School 77 in an innovative program.  The school formed a bank run by schoolboys.  Pupils made deposits and withdrawals "and even promissory notes are dealt with," said the article.  Zinsser was "a prime factor in establishing the right principles," said the article.  And when a student's bank account reached $5, it was transferred to the Yorkville Bank where it began receiving interest.

On September 22, 1922, The New York Times reported that the bank had purchased the 25-foot-wide, three-story building at 1515 Third Avenue.  Architect P. Gregory Stadler was hired to extend the bank building to the north and east.  His alterations, completed in 1924, honored Maynicke's design, resulting in nearly seamless additions.

An announcement of the merger of the Manufacturers Trust Company with three other banks, including the Yorkville Bank was published in the New York Evening Post on June 2, 1925.  It described the Yorkville Bank, "For many years the financial center of the great Yorkville District of Upper Manhattan."

At the time of the merger, Ernest Wolkwitz had been an employee of the Yorkville Bank since 1892, when he was hired as a clerk.  By now he had risen to vice-president.  He retained his title and was given charge of the branch here.  The new responsibilities may have been too much for him, and on July 1, 1927, he retired "on account of ill health," according to The New York Times.  At the time, he was being treated "for a nervous affliction."

Wolkwitz and his wife, Minna, lived in a ninth-floor apartment at 115 East 90th Street.  On the afternoon of November 21, 1927, Minna went shopping.  When she returned, she found Wolkwitz's body hanging "from a pipe in the bathroom of his apartment," according to The Times.

image from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Twenty-two year old Patricia Ann Ryan was a teller in the Manufacturers Trust Co. branch in 1956 when she faced a terrifying incident.  On August 15, a man walked up to her counter and handed her a note that said in part that he had "nitro enough on me to blow all us up."  It seems, however, that this was the skittish bank robber's first heist.  The Citizen Register of Ossining, New York reported, "Before Miss Ryan had time to hand him any money, the man panicked, turned and ran."

Among the upstairs tenants in the late 1950s were the offices of the New York National Enquirer.  In 1974, a medical laboratory took over the entire third floor.  The bank left the ground floor in 1991.  A renovation in 2018 resulted in a retail store on the first floor and a health club on the upper floors.  Happily, Maynicke's striking 1906 design remains almost totally intact, including the graceful arcade of the first floor.

image via NYC.gov

McKim, Mead & White's 1912 998 Fifth Avenue

 

photograph by Eden, Janine and Jim

In the first decade of the 20th century, apartment living had gained favor on the Upper West Side.  On the opposite side of Central Park, however, things were different.  Here, multi-family residential buildings were still associated with tenements--not the sort of conditions Upper East Side millionaires would consider.  And so when James T. Lee (the future grandfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis) and Charles R. Fleischmann, partners in the Century Holding Co., acquired the plot of land at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 81st Street in the spring of 1910, they were setting out on a risky and daring project.

Lee and Fleischman had acquired the property from millionaire August Belmont "after long negotiations," according to the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide on June 4, 1910.  Belmont had purchased the plot (which was "one of two pieces on upper 5th av. that are not covered by restrictions") as the intended site of his mansion.  Now the partners conceived the third "really high-class apartment house," as described by the Guide, on Fifth Avenue.

"The house will be twelve stories high and will contain but eighteen apartments.  No apartment will have less than seventeen rooms and there may be one of twenty-eight rooms," said the article.  Readers were doubtlessly shocked when they read, "The rentals will range from $10,000 to $26,000, making them the highest renting apartments in the city."  That shock would have been well founded.  The $26,000 per year rent would translate to about $71,650 a month by 2024 conversion.

Six of the 18 apartments "will be on the duplex plan," said the article, adding, 

All the rooms will be of large dimensions and will be decorated as elaborately as the most sumptuous private homes.  The exterior of the building will be in the Italian Renaissance, the facade being of limestone.

McKim, Mead & White, which was currently designing the north wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art almost directly across the avenue, had been given the commission.  The firm's architect William Richardson headed the project.  His choice of an Italian palazzo design was almost assuredly intended to slip unobtrusively into the mansion neighborhood.  (McKim, Mead & White had been faced with the same consideration in 1896 when it designed the University Club within Millionaires' Row.  This new building would have striking similarities.)

Richardson separated the building's three four-story sections with prominent stringcourses--one distinguished by a stone balustrade and the other by Juliette balconies.  The rusticated granite base was decorated with Renaissance inspired shields.  The fifth floor openings wore arched and triangular pediments, and a bracketed cornice completed the design.

McKim, Mead & White released this rendering in 1910.  Record & Guide, August 13, 1910 (copyright expired)

As excavations got underway, the Century Holding Company did significant marketing, stressing that these apartments would be commensurate to mansion living.  On August 13, 1910, the Record & Guide reported, "In the plan of the house an intention is perceived to give in each apartment more and larger room than can be found in any private city dwelling, with the exception of a few of the largest residences.  The four principal rooms--namely, the salon, dining-room, living-room (or library) and the gallery--aggregate 2,500 square feet."  

The servants' wing was well separated from the tenants' space.  The New York Times, December 7, 1913 (copyright expired)

Residents would also be supplied with jewelry safes, wine cellars in the basement, and at least six servants' rooms.  As the building neared completion on March 10, 1912, The Sun noted, "the rooms have been laid out and made of such size that tenants can entertain just as they would in large dwellings.  Indeed the use of fine marbles and woods in reception halls and on stairways has been so skillful that the apartments give at once the impression of expensive individual homes."

An advertisement promised, "Management provides without charge--Vacuum cleaning of suites, window cleaning, artificial refrigerator and supply of cake ice."  The bathrooms were lined with marble.  The Sun was impressed with the modern conveniences, pointing out,

The kitchen is provided with a waste incinerator which makes unnecessary the handling of garbage.  Washing machines of the latest device and electric drying and ironing equipment are included in the service.  Refrigeration is supplied to kitchens by means of a pipe coil and cake ice made on the premises as well is supplied to tenants.

photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

At the time of the article, almost all of the apartments had been rented.  Those who signed leases during construction had provided their input on the individual designs.  The Sun mentioned, "In the Root and Guggenheim apartments, which include whole floors, the salons and livings rooms have been thrown together to make large spaces where receptions and dances may be held.  In Senator Guggenheim's apartment this room has been done in gold, with a ceiling which probably is the equal of anything of the kind in the city."

The tenants mentioned in the article, industrialist and politician Murray Guggenheim and his wife, the former Leonie Bernheim; and Elihu Root and his wife, Clara Wales; would have equally impressive neighbors within the building.  Others who signed leases during construction, according to The Sun, were Commodore Robert E. Tod, Lloyd Aspinwall, Rogers Winthrop, Levi P. Morton, Colonel George Fearing, and Henry Goldman.

On November 1, 1913, the Record & Guide concluded, "It paid to go the limit."  The article said, "The highest schedule of rentals ever known in the city attracted families from the best circles of society.  No more distinguished social functions have occurred anywhere this year in the city than were enjoyed in this house."

Elihu Root was a familiar name to Americans.  He was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1883.  Then, in July 1899, he was made Secretary of War by President William McKinley.  Root resigned his cabinet position on February 1, 1904 to return to New York and his private law practice.  The Roots' summer estate was in Clinton, New York.

Another former politician was Levi Parsons Morton, who had married his second wife, Anna Livingston Reade Street, in 1873.  A descendant of George Morton, who landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Ann in 1623, he started his career in the drygoods business.  In 1878, he was elected to Congress, was appointed Minister to France in 1881, and in 1889 became Vice President under Benjamin Harrison.  He served as Governor of New York from January 1, 1895 through December 31, 1896.

Banker Henry Goldman of Goldman Sachs and his wife, the former Babette Kaufman, had three children.  All the residents of 998 Fifth Avenue had impressive art collections, but none, perhaps, surpassed the Goldmans'.  Shortly after they moved in, on December 12, 1912, The New York Times reported that Goldman had purchased a "painting of St. Bartholomew by Rembrandt" and said it, "is now adorning the gallery of Mr. Goldman's home."  Dr. Wilhelm Bode, the foremost European authority on Rembrandt declared it "to be a splendid specimen of the great artist's work."

Five years later, on January 16, 1917, The New York Times reported that Goldman had added Hans Holbein's Portrait of a Musician to his collection.  "The picture cost Mr. Goldman $175,000," said the article.

Three years before that article, the Goldman family's name had appeared in the newspapers for less happy reasons.  On May 26, 1914, Robert Goldman, who was 20 years old, "ran away from Williams College, where he was a junior," reported The Evening World, "with Edith Ostend, a chorus girl, and they were secretly married in Jersey City."  Goldman's bride was 19 years old.  The marriage did not sit well with her new parents-in-law.

Young Goldman was sent to "Ranch L07," a property in Meeker's, Colorado.  Calling the ranch "his exile," The Evening World explained, "With an English tutor the boy was sent out there to be a cowboy and to forget his costly experience on Broadway."  In the meantime, Henry Goldman had Edith Ostend Goldman trailed.

In court on March 1, 1915, Goldman's private secretary, Chester E. Mann, related that he had headed a raid on the studio of artist Nathan Harris at 66 West 9th Street.  He and the investigators climbed down a fire escape and into a window.  "Mrs. Goldman was sitting on a couch nude with Harris," he testified.  It was the beginning of the end of Robert Goldman's short-lived marriage.

On December 23, 1918, The Evening Post reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Edson Bradley will give a dinner-dance at their apartment at 998 Fifth Avenue on Wednesday evening."  At the time, the Bradleys had homes in Tuxedo Park, Newport, Washington D.C. and on Wellesley Island.  Born in New Canaan, Connecticut, Bradley was married to the former Julia Wentworth Williams.  He succeeded her stepfather, Marshall J. Allen, as president of W. A. Gaines & Co., one of the largest distilleries in the nation.  The dinner dance reported on by The Evening Post was just one of the many glittering events that would be held in their apartment.

The New-York Tribune reported on December 21, 1922, for instance, "Mr. and Mrs. Edson Bradley gave a dinner at their home, 988 Fifth Avenue, last night for Bishop and Mrs. William T. Manning.  Among the guests were their neighbors, Elihu and Clara Root, along with Lady Maitland, the Chauncey Depews, Mrs. Herbert Shipman, and others.

On June 5, 1924, the New York Evening Post reported that the Bradleys had "closed their home at 998 Fifth avenue and are at the Plaza until they go to Newport for the summer."  The couple was in the process of rebuilding their mansion there.

In 1931, the art collection of W. E. Dickerman hung on walls covered in brocaded fabric.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Other socially prominent residents were Elliot Fitch Shepard, Jr. and his wife, the former Eleanor Leigh Terradell.  Shepard was the son of Elliott Fitch Shepard and Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt, the eldest daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt.  On October 20, 1918, The Sun casually mentioned, "Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, after passing the summer in the Virginia Hot Springs, has returned to 998 Fifth avenue."

Six months after that article, another Vanderbilt moved into 998 Fifth Avenue.  On April 5, 1919, the Record & Guide reported that Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt, the widow of George Washington Vanderbilt, had leased "a duplex apartment, especially planned, of 18 rooms and 5 baths."

French paneling and frescoed ceilings made way for modern decor in the Edouard Jonas apartment in 1936.  On the walls are Van Gogh's Portrait of a Peasant; Dancers in the Wings by Degas; and Degas's Horse with Head Lowered.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The following year, in July, apartments were leased to Harriet Smith Van Schoonhoven Thorne and Henry Fairfield Osborn.  Harriet Thorne's husband, millionaire Jonathan Thorne, had died in January that year.  

Henry Fairfield Osborn was born in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1857 to a distinguished family.  His father, William Henry Osborn, was a railroad mogul.  Henry's wife was the former Lucretia Thatcher Perry.  Unlike his industrialist father, Henry pursued an academic career.  He was hired in 1891 as a professor of zoology at Columbia University, and subsequently took the position of curator of the Vertebrate Paleontology Department of the American Museum of Natural History.

Another prominent family here by 1926 were the Lewis Latham Clarkes.  Born in 1871, Clarke descended from William Ellery, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, on his mother's side; and from Emperor Charlemagne and Henry I of England on his father's.  Florence M. Clarke held her own among the socialites in the building in terms of lavish entertaining.

On March 11, 1927, for instance, The New York Times reported that Emilio Axerio, Consul General for Italy had conferred the decoration of Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy upon Lewis Latham Clarke "at a dinner which Mrs. Clarke gave last night at their home, 998 Fifth Avenue."  The article said, "A musical program and supper followed the dinner."  Among the 52 dinner guests were elite names like Schermerhorn, Mackay, Baruch, Brokaw, and Harriman.  

On April 15, 1912, the year 998 Fifth Avenue was completed, John Jacob Astor IV perished when the RMS Titanic sank.  His pregnant wife, Madeleine was rescued and on August 14 their son, John Jacob Astor VI was born.  Now, three decades later, he moved into a penthouse here after his wife, Ellen, filed for divorce in Reno in the spring of 1943.

A rumor reached The New York Times that Astor was sharing his apartment with a female named Silvia.  As it turned out, however, she was not his latest love interest.  On October 29, 1943, the newspaper reported that Astor's butler had taken Silvia to the Ellin Prince Speyer Hospital for Animals, noting, "it was known at the hospital as 'the penthouse pig.'"  The article described Silvia as, "about nine inches long and about three weeks old."

In the end, an "emphatic" spokesperson for Astor explained that the pig was not a pet, but "one of a litter from Mr. Astor's farm at Basking Ridge, N. J."  Because it was undernourished, "Mr. Astor and his chauffeur drove the pig from the farm to the hospital."  The animal, "had never been domiciled in a penthouse, never had lived on Fifth Avenue, never had been a pet of Mr. Astor," insisted the statement.

One Sylvia who did live at 998 Fifth Avenue was the fascinating Sylvia Green Wilks.  (Her actual name was Harriet Sylvia Ann Howland Robinson Green Wilks, but she was always known as Sylvia.)  The daughter of eccentric multimillionaire Hettie Green, she was the widow of Matthew Astor Wilks, the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor I.  Sylvia Wilks died in the New York Hospital on February 5, 1951 while living here.  She left an estate valued at $94,965,229 (about $1.1 billion in 2024).

In 1953, 998 Fifth Avenue was converted to a cooperative.  The storied building continued to be home to some of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens.  The 16-room John Jacob Astor VI penthouse was acquired by attorney William Condren, who sold it to Archibald Cox, Jr., son of the Watergate prosecutor, in August 1993 for $5.4 million.  It was sold again in 2000.  Among the other residents at the time were Morton Hyman, head of Overseas Shipholding Group; private investor Peter Kimmelman; and zoning attorney Samuel Lindenbaum.  In September 2017, William P. Lauder, executive chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies, purchased a 14-room apartment on the sixth floor for $23.5 million.

photograph by Jay Dobkin

In designating 998 Fifth Avenue an individual landmark in 1974, the Landmarks Preservation Commission called it, "the finest Italian Renaissance style apartment house in New York City."

Emery Roth's 1925 310 West End Avenue

 

Emery Roth is perhaps best known for his sophisticated Art Deco style apartment buildings.  But in 1924, when he was hired by the 310 Corporation to design a 15-story structure at the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West 75th Street, he turned instead to the Italian Renaissance for inspiration.  Completed the following year, the building was clad in brown brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  

The two-story entrance framework included crown-capped Renaissance style shields, elaborate capitals, decorative finials, and a complex carved frieze that included portrait rondels.  Other romantic details were stone balconettes at the 13th floor that supported double-height arcades.

An advertisement in The New York Times on May 20, 1925 stressed the "oversize" apartments, saying that a five-room apartment was "equal to a splendid 6-room suite."  The apartments, said the ad, were "built to an ideal" with "spaciousness the keynote."  A five-room apartment included two bedrooms, a dining alcove, foyer, "five large closets," two baths and a servant's room.  The ad noted each apartment had a separate delivery entrance.  There were also 3- and 4-room apartments available.  Rents for a five-room unit ranged from $2,800 to $3,400 a year--equal to about $4,525 per month for the most expensive in 2024 terms.

Among the early tenants was actress Anna Laughlin Monroe, known to theater audiences nationwide as Anna Laughlin.  On April 6, 1937, the Springfield [Missouri] Leader and Press commented that she lived "in a richly-furnished apartment on West End avenue."

Born in Sacramento California in 1885, Laughlin began appearing on stage as a child.  In 1902, at the age of 16, she was cast in the role of Dorothy Gale in the new play The Wizard of Oz, which opened in Chicago and played on Broadway through 1904.  The Associated Press called her "the toast of Broadway when Fred Stone was doing his scarecrow dance in the 'Wizard of Oz'." 

In 1904, a diamond merchant named Dwight "Van" Monroe saw Laughlin on stage and was smitten.  "Every night for four weeks he bought a ticket--an aisle seat on the fourth row--to hear Anna Laughlin sing 'Rosalie'," recalled the Associated Press in 1937.  The couple was married in 1906 and had a daughter, Lucy.

Anna Laughlin appeared in 18 silent films between 1913 and 1915, and following her husband's death in 1925, she returned to Broadway in The Fall Guy, after which her theatrical career came to an end.

Anna Laughlin, from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In the meantime, Lucy Monroe had taken over the spotlight.  Anna had encouraged her daughter's musical ambitions and in 1925 Lucy joined the Ziegfeld Follies.  By the time her mother moved into 310 West End Avenue, she was known nationally as a singer.  Her stellar career drove a wedge between her and her mother, and eventually led to Anna Laughlin Monroe's death.

On April 5, 1937, Anna wrote a long, accusatory note that read:

This is goodbye.  People are dreadful.  I love my child.  I have given all I have in the world to put her where she is now.  She has gone.  This is a suddenly strange place.  I want her.  I ask my God from heaven--let me in.

Lucy is never coming back.  Where did I fail?  What is wrong?  She does not know what she is doing.

I had intended to sublet, but no one came.

Oh, I hate to dim out the light and turn my back upon all the things so dear to my heart.  Forgive me, dear God.  We were so eager to see things together, but my darling daughter has forsaken me.  Please, Heavenly Father, watch over my child and protect her.

She then pulled a kitchen chair up to the range, opened all the gas jets and placed her head in the oven.  She was found dead later that day.

The building continued to attract well-heeled tenants through the Depression and World War II years.  On August 25, 1941, for instance, the New York Sun reported that John Wershing had taken an apartment "of five rooms and two baths," noting he was the "owner of a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico."  Living here at the time were David Zimmern and his wife, the former Sadie Goodstein.  A retired diamond importer, he had been a partner in Zimmern, Rees & Co. for six decades.

Joseph Hunt Bourland was born in Clarendon, Texas on January 31, 1911.  After graduating from Texas A. and M., he entered the Naval Academy.  He and his wife, Gertrude, lived here when the United States entered World War II and Bourland, now a Lieutenant Commander, was called to action.

On July 30, 1943, the 1,525-ton submarine Runner was commissioned with Bourland assigned as the skipper of its 65-man crew.  Gertrude Bourland received the worst imaginable news three months later.  On October 27, 1943, The Times Record reported, "The Navy today announced the loss of the submarine Runner, presumably in the Pacific."

The second half of the century saw an influx of residents involved in the arts.  Amy Zahl, who lived in apartment 12C, had a long-term houseguest in writer Adele Wiseman from September 1960 through June 1961, according to Ruth Panofsky's The Force of Vocation.  Born in 1928 in Canada, Wiseman's first novel, The Sacrifice, was published in 1950.  While living here she wrote "Duel in the Kitchen," a short story published in Maclean's magazine in January 1961.

According to Kate Bassett in her 2014 In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller, British theatrical director, actor and author Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller and his wife, Rachel Collet, rented an apartment here while living in New York City in 1964 while Miller directed Robert Lowell's The Old Glory at the American Place Theatre.

By 1967, the year that 310 West End Avenue was converted to a cooperative, artist and sculptor Clara Shainess lived here.  Born in 1896, she was known for her geometric abstractions.  Listed in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in American Art, her work was exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair, and in gallery exhibitions for decades.

Ronald Steven Lauder and his wife, the former Jo Carole Knopf, were residents starting around 1987.  Born in 1944, Ron Lauder was one of two sons of Estée and Joseph Lauder and an heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company.  He was, more importantly, a politician and activist.

In 1984, he was made Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy at the Department of Defense.  Two years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed him U.S. Ambassador to Australia.  After leaving that position in 1987, he returned to New York City.  While living here in 1989, he ran for mayor of New York City, losing to Rudy Giuliani.

Emery Roth's staid brown brick building is little changed since it opened in the spring of 1925.

photographs by the author

The 1893 Max Feist House - 245 West 139th Street

 

photo by Mark Satlof

In 1890, developer David H. King, Jr. embarked on an expansive and ambitious project.  It was described by the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide on August 16 as, "one of the most important building operations ever undertaken in this city."  The article explained that King intended to cover the entire block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues (today Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, respectively) and 138th and 139th Streets, as well as the south side of  138th Street between the same avenues with "buildings of a first-class character."

King expanded the project in 1891 by adding the northern blockfront of 139th Street.  "The new portion, engulfing the northern blockfront of 139th Street, would follow the same plan as the others and be designed by McKim, Mead & White," said the Record & Guide on January 27.  Stanford White was put in charge of the design.  His Renaissance Revival rowhouses were faced in orange Roman brick above rusticated brownstone bases.  Completed in 1893, they rose four stories above shallow basements.

Among them was 245 West 139th Street.  Its entrance above a short stoop was protected by a glass-and-iron marquee.  A dramatic Venetian-style balcony dominated the second floor.  Its molded brick frame upheld a terra cotta lintel, directly below an ornate terra cotta rosette.  

No. 245 became home to the Feist family.  Max Feist was the principal in the millinery supplies business named for himself.  He also invested in Harlem real estate.  Feist and his wife had one son.  S. Feist entered the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1913, but interrupted his studies a year before graduating to attend the Butt Military Training Camp in Burlington, Vermont.

Following World War I, Henry Allen Wallace, a widower, moved into 245 West 139th Street.  Born in Columbia, South Carolina, he was educated in Canada and at Howard University.  As a young man, he passed a civil service test and was hired as a clerk in the War Department, first in Washington and later in the New York City office.  He held that position for over 30 years.

More importantly, Wallace focused on what today is called Black History.  The New York Age said of him, "Mr. Wallace was a contributor to many Negro historical works, being an authority on Negro Ante-Bellum history; especially during the Reconstruction period in South Carolina."

An early activist for racial equality, Wallace was, as well, a stickler on historic accuracy.  He read an article in the January 1920 issue of The Journal of Negro History, for example, that outlined a meeting of the Secretary for South Carolina with two Black men "concerning the formation of the political organization for the newly enfranchised Negro."  Wallace shot back with a four-page letter to its editor, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, pointing out numerous inaccuracies.  In it, he said, "History, unless it is based on facts, incontrovertible facts, is worthless."

245 West 139th Street is second from left.  photo by Mark Satlof

Living at the address at the time was Mrs. M. E. Richardson, who was either a boarder or Wallace's housekeeper.  Her grandfather, Shandy Jones, had been a member of the Alabama Legislature during Reconstruction.

In 1922 Wallace visited Toronto, Canada (where he had spent his school years) for four weeks.  He wrote an article for The New York Age outlining racial conditions there.  In it he said in part:

Toronto has made wonderful strides and from a population of 50,000 in 1870 is now 529,000.  It would not be true to say there is no prejudice there.  The large influx of Americans has caused considerable prejudice, though one will be told, as in most of our northern cities, that there is none...When I hear a person say there is no prejudice at a certain place I know then there are not many colored persons at that place.

In failing health, Henry A. Wallace sold 245 West 139th Street in June 1922 to Harry and Sarah Wills.  Wallace moved to his sister's home in Chester, Pennsylvania where he died on February 12, 1923.

The title to 245 West 139th Street was in Sarah's name, so when the couple erected a garage in the back lot in 1922, she was listed as the owner of record.  

In reporting that Wills had purchased the property, the Record & Guide called him, "the colored aspirant for the Heavyweight Championship of the World."  He was known in boxing circles as the Black Panther.  That year, on March 12, New York Herald sportswriter W. O. McGeehan interviewed Harry Wills.  The boxer opened up about his personal life, saying for instance, "What do I read?  I read the papers and I like to read about history.  But the best book I ever had is a book written by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.  He was a colored man, too, you know."

Harry Wills, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Harry Wills would hold the World Colored Heavyweight Championship three times.  But because of the "color line" held by the Boxing Commission, he never had a shot at his most coveted prize: the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World.  In his interview with McGeehan, he mentioned that fighting Jack Dempsey would be a distinction, but added frankly that the purse for that fight would be welcomed, as well. "It isn't very easy for colored fighters to get any kind of money."

In 1930, Dr. H. Binga Dismond and his wife, the former Geraldyn Hodges, moved into 245 West 139th Street.  He was a graduate of the University of Illinois, where, according to The New York Age, "he equalled [sic] the world's record for the 440-yard dash."  He had been practicing medicine since 1924, prompting the newspaper to call him in 1934, the "well known Harlem medico and sportsman."  He moved his medical practice into the house, as well.

photo by Mark Satlof

Geraldyn Hodges Dismond (known as Gerri) was a fascinating woman, especially considering the period and her race.  Ebony magazine would call her "one of the 'new Negroes' of the early 20th Century," and "one of the best known black women in America."  She and Dismond had met during World War I when she was a major in the American Red Cross and he was a soldier.

Her far-reaching resume included journalist, newscaster, publicist, author, community leader and editor.  Her residency at 245 West 139th Street would be relatively short, however.  Geraldyn received a Mexican divorce in 1933, although reportedly the couple remained friendly over the succeeding years.

The reason for the divorce soon became clear.  On March 24, 1934, The New York Age reported that Dr. H. Binga Dismond had married Harriet Richardson.  "The bride's address was given as 245 West 139th street, which is the same as the doctor's," said the article.

Three months after his marriage, Dismond resigned from the American Medical Association.  The New York Age reported the move was "a protest against a new type of discrimination."  The AMA annually published a membership directory, and the article explained, "In previous years all members were listed without any special reference to their racial origin."  But when Dismond received his proof-sheets for approval, he saw "col." next to each Black physician's name.

The Dismonds had two "lodgers" that year, musicians Cyrus St. Clair and Fred Moore.  In 1940 there were three lodgers living at the address, Benjamin Franklin, Elizabeth Wade, and Nilo Rivera.

In 1941, Harriet Dismond was granted a divorce.  On July 18, 1942, The New York Age mentioned that Dismond "recently took unto himself a fourth wife."  (Cora Dismond was, actually, his third.)

The West 139th Street house was, at times, the scene of lavish entertaining.  On September 19, 1942, The New York Age reported on the couple's "Haitian Bar" themed party in honor of Judge and Mrs. Herman E. Moore of the Virgin Islands.  "The invitation started uptown's Fall social season with a flair," said the article, adding, "the setting was reminiscent of the good old days when Harlem was 'Harlem' and A'Lelia Walker, Carolyn Wilkins, and Turner Layton and Tandy Johnson were in their hey day."

Dismond surprised those who knew him when he published a book of poetry, We Who Would Die, in 1943.  The New York Age said it was "glowingly received by critics nation-wide."  The critic of the Hartford, Connecticut newspaper Courant said, "It is this reviewer's belief that the Negro poet, Binga Dismond, numbers among the great poets of modern times."  Twelve years later, Dismond's second volume, I've Often Wondered, was released.

The Dismonds moved to Sag Harbor in 1950.  Five years later, the upper floors of 245 West 139th Street were converted to furnished rooms.  A doctor's office still occupied the first floor.

Major change came in 1979 when Mutulu Shakur purchased the house.  He converted the doctor's office to the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture, headquarters of the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America, or BAANA.  According to Rachel Pagones in her 2021 Acupuncture as Revolution--Suffering, Liberation, and Love, "The front room was used as a classroom, and in back was a conference area.  At street level was a clinic, with a front desk and waiting room--sometimes doubling as a classroom--to the fore and a treatment room behind."  

Mutulu Shakur, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation

On October 20, 1981, a Brink's armored car was robbed in Rockland County by several Black Liberation Army members and four former members of the Weather Underground.  In the process, a guard was murdered.  When their getaway car was stopped by two police officers, the robbers shot them dead, too.  Mutulu Shakur disappeared from West 139th Street.  

In Shakur's absence, the F.B.I. wiretapped the 245 West 139th Street telephones.  The New York Times reported, "they repeatedly heard orders placed for cocaine by a variety of people."  On March 7, 1983, nearly two years after the heist and murders, The New York Times reported, "at 245 West 139th Street, Mr. Shakur ran a clinic that, according to the F.B.I., was really the planning center for armed robberies.  From that address, F.B.I. officials say, the robbers left for Rockland County on Oct. 20, 1981."

On August 9, 1982, The New York Times reported, "The groups identified by the F.B.I. as communicating through the acupuncture center included the Black Liberation Army, the Republic of New Afrika, the May 19 Communist Organization, the Black Panther Party, the Weather Underground Organization and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee."  Mutulu Shakur was finally arrested on February 12, 1986 in California.  He was sentenced to 60 years, but was released on December 16, 2022 because of his failing health.  He died on July 7, 2023.

photo by Mark Satlof

In the meantime, 245 West 139th Street was returned to a single family home in 1999.  

many thanks to Mark Satlof for suggesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The 1903 Alabama Hotel - 13-15 East 11th Street

 

When Leopold Wertheim purchased the "old buildings" at 13 and 15 East 11th Street in April 1902, he was already erecting an apartment building, The Van Rensselaer, on the site of two other vintage structures next door at 17 and 19 East 11th Street.  In reporting on the recent sale, the Record & Guide commented, "A 9-story apartment building will be erected on the plot."

As it rose, the Van Rensselaer had been leased to the Municipal Realty Company.  Now, according to the New-York Tribune, "arrangements are being perfected for the leasing to the corporation of Nos. 13 and 15 East Eleventh-st., and making the two hotels one."

Despite those negotiations, architect Louis Korn made no attempt to meld the designs of the two structures.  The 45-foot-wide Alabama Hotel would be clad in red brick above a two-story, rusticated limestone base.  Its Italian Renaissance Revival design featured a Palladio-inspired portico with free-standing Ionic columns, wreath framed openings and swirling carved ribbons and bellflowers.  The entrance sat within an intricately carved frame.

Korn visually divided the six-story midsection in two parts by lavishing the openings of the third through fifth floors with quoins, elaborate keystones and carvings.  Each of the more sedate sixth through eighth floors grew less ornamented, with molded lintels and scrolled keystones at the sixth, bracketed sills at the seventh, and prim stone frames at the eighth.  A full-wide stone balcony fronted the top floor.  The structure cost Wertheim the equivalent of $5.36 million to construct by 2023 terms.

The Hotel Alabama opened as an "apartment hotel" in 1903. "Elegantly furnished apartments with private bath" rented for $25 per week, if the guest took two meals per day, or $15 if they needed only one.  The rent would translate to about $800 per week for the more expensive today.

Henry Gregory Granger lived here in 1905.  Described by the New-York Tribune as "a United States consular agent in Colombia," on November 9 the newspaper said, "Granger is a Princeton graduate and was an athlete when in college...He has just returned from Colombia, where he has extensive mining and agricultural interests."

The previous year, Charles O. Brewster had been a poll watcher at 27 Chrystie Street.  Poll watchers were hired by candidates to ensure there was no tampering with the election process.  Brewster "was sandbagged while on duty there," said the New-York Tribune, noting "One of the worst districts in the city for watchers, who are not in sympathy with Tammany Hall is the 6th Assembly, of which 'Little Tim' Sullivan is the leader."  Brewster said he would return this year "if he could have two husky men to back him up."  

One of them was Henry Gregory Granger.  At six-foot, two-inches tall and 215 pounds, he and his brother N. N. Granger, who was also an athlete, accompanied Brewster to the Chrystie Street polling site.  It did not go well.

On November 9, 1905, the New-York Tribune wrote that Henry G. Granger, "is lying in his apartments at the Hotel Alabama, No. 15 East 11th-st., a sadly battered wreck."  The article said that while standing in front of the polling station, "he was knocked down with a blackjack and kicked in the face until he became insensible."  Granger told police "that the brutal attack was instigated by State Senator John G. Fitzgerald, who succeeded 'Big Tim' Sullivan."  

In March 1906, May Kay took a suite in the Hotel Alabama.  The Sun described her as "a very good looking young woman, who had plenty of fine clothes and jewelry and appeared to be well supplied with money."  May's husband had died three years earlier.  A broker in New Orleans, he left her substantial property in New York and Cincinnati.  She additionally received $150,000 in liquid assets (more than $4.5 million today).

The young widow entrusted a former schoolmate with the administration of her affairs, giving him complete power of attorney.  Another friend confidentially said he "had reason to suspect that there had been a love affair between Mrs. Kay and the young man."  She received a letter early in 1906 that read:

My Darling Dear.  Am leaving but against my wishes.  If you love me, please wait until my return.  I simply cannot give you up.  Yours sincerely, Bill.

May did not wait, but followed him to New York.  It is unclear if she ever found him.  Whether she did or not, she was "the source of a good deal of uneasiness to the hotel management," said The Sun on March 30.  "She was in a highly nervous state and had announced on several occasions that she was going to commit suicide."  Two nights before that article Dr. P. E. Bush, who had been treating her, remained in her apartment until 3:00 in the morning, "arguing with her about the foolishness of taking her life."  She promised him, finally, that she would not.

But early on the evening of March 29, May telephoned the desk, telling the Gregor Krischbaum, "Come quickly to my room.  I've shot myself."  The clerk made rapid-fire calls to Dr. Travell who lived down the block, then the police, and then an ambulance.  (Krischbaum later told investigators that May had had "a long telephone conversation over the telephone with a man," shortly before shooting herself.)

When Dr. Travell arrived, May told him, "I want to die, and I am sorry to bother you.  I don't wish you to go to any trouble.  Just leave me alone.  I will be glad when it is all over."  As Travell looked around for the weapon, she directed, "You'll find it over there in the corner.  I threw it behind a portiere."  The Sun reported, "A fancy little revolver was where she said it was."  May Kay had attempted to shoot herself in the heart, but missed.

Blanche Turner Dennis's story was strikingly similar to May Kay's.  Born in the South, she had been married to Confederate Major Hugh C. Dennis, who later became president of the Rialto Grain and Securities Company of St. Louis.  He died about six months after May's husband.  The Sun described Blanche almost exactly as it did May Kay.  "She had plenty of clothes and some jewelry and was apparently always in funds."  She had taken a suite at the Hotel Alabama a few months before May Kay arrived.

The Sun said, "Mrs. Dennis occupied a suite of three rooms, which were tastefully furnished and contained many pieces of bric-a-brac and paintings which she bought from time to time to decorate the rooms."  She had only one caller, a man of about 50 years of age.  Blanche Dennis's story was as tragic as May Kay's.  She had been hiding a pregnancy and died on March 29, the same day May shot herself, of "blood poisoning following a criminal operation presumably performed by herself," as reported by The Sun.

The negotiations to combine the Van Rensselaer and The Alabama had fallen through in 1902.  Now in 1906, J. C. Lawrence, the proprietor of the Van Rensselaer, acquired The Alabama.  While they continued to be operated as separate entities, they were now under the same management.  An advertisement on September 19, 1909 was titled, "In the Midst of Aristocracy are the Alabama - Van Rensselaer Hotels."  The "permanent rentals" ranged from $30 to $200 monthly, an extravagant $6,150 today for the most expensive.

On January 16, 1908, Detroit newspaper man James L. Long, checked into the Hotel Alabama.  The New-York Tribune said, "He seemed to have plenty 0f money and spent it freely."  The following morning a young woman, Carrie O'Neill, applied for a job as a maid and was hired.  A week later, on January 23, the she was seen coming from Long's room by a porter who notified the management.  The New-York Tribune reported, "When asked about the incident Long became indignant, and, handing his key to the clerk, moved out, bag and baggage.  Carrie O'Neil was summarily dismissed and also left the hotel."

At the time of the unpleasant confrontations, two residents Mrs. Harold B. Miller and Mrs. M. R. Gibbs were both at dinner.  When they returned to their rooms, they found them ransacked.  The burglars had overlooked $5,000 in jewels in Mrs. Miller's apartment.  Acting on a hunch, police went to the Hotel Breslin where Long had had his trunk forwarded.  They broke in his door and found him and Carrie O'Neil together.  The detectives also found the "valuable gowns" of Miller and Gibbs there.  Police believed they had solved the string of mysterious hotel robberies that had began weeks earlier.

A resident was the victim of a more bizarre robbery on January 17, 1909.  The Sun began its article saying, "A queer story was turned out at Headquarters last night of a robbery whose victim was a woman known to the police only as Miss Simmons of the Hotel Alabama."  That afternoon, she told investigators, she was out walking when she met an acquaintance she had not seen in some time.  The article said, "The two walked together until it began to storm...The man suggested that they go into a café and wait until he could summon a cab."

While seated at a table, he asked to see the diamond pin, valued at $400, she was wearing.  "The man suddenly excused himself and went out.  Miss Simmons says she asked for her pin, but he did not stop."  The story became stranger when Miss Simmons received a telephone call the following morning from the friend, who said he would be at the Alabama in a few moments.  She waited, but a different man showed up, said he was a secret service detective, and could help her recover her jewelry.  The astute Miss Simmons asked him to please come back later that afternoon.  Then, when a man approached the desk and asked for Miss Simmons, detectives were waiting to arrest him.

The Sun reported that Don P. Collins had a shield in his coat pocket presumably from the Secret Service Society of the United States.  He told the detectives he had called on Miss Simmons "to see if he could get the job of getting back her pine, as he had heard of the robbery."  Miss Simmons identified him as a man she had seen at the café when her "friend" had stolen her pin.  He was held as a suspicious person.

After James E. Knott, head of the Knott Corporation, purchased the two hotels around 1912, he listed them together as the Hotel Van Rensselaer.  An advertisement that year called it "The finest hotel below Fourteenth Street," and offered, "To rent by the week, month, season or year, at very attractive rentals."  The rents started at $15 including meals.  The advertisement noted "Cuisine of the highest standing at moderate rates.  Table d'hote breakfast."

Despite the changing neighborhood in the post World War I years, the hotel continued to house respectable residents.  Among them was Theodore L. Waugh, who was appointed Assistant District Attorney in September 1918.

Four decades after his father had purchased the buildings, in October 1950, David H. Knott sold the property to Nathan Wilson.  The New York Times reported, "A condition of the sale was that Mr. Knott and his family will continue to have their city home on the property."  The article noted, "Mr. Wilson plans to alter the apartment building into smaller suites."  Still, the renovations did not combine the two buildings internally.

Living in one of those smaller suites in 1970 was 18-year-old Cheryl Sharpton.  She was one of five arrested on October 9 that year for armed bank robbery.  Two days earlier two teenaged girls had attempted to hold up the main office of the Dry Dock Savings Bank at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, but failed.  They implicated the other three including Sharpton, the oldest of them being 21 years old.  Police said they had netted about $32,500 in bank robberies since July 6.

A more respectable resident at the time was Ida Rauh Eastman.  Born in 1877, she was a founder of the historic Provincetown Players and an ardent feminist.  A sculptor, poet, painter and actress, she had been known as the "Duse of Macdougal Street" (where the Provincetown Theater was located), and directed the first production of Eugene O'Neill's Where the Cross is Made.  

Rauh (she preferred to be known by her maiden name), had been active within Margaret Sanger's birth-control campaigns and was arrested in 1916 for distributing birth-control pamphlets.  Her bust of close friend D. H. Lawrence is now housed in the Lawrence Memorial Library in New Mexico.  The 92-year-old died in her apartment here on February 28, 1970.

The Alabama and the Van Rensselaer were joined by a common lobby in 1984.

In 1984 the two structures were internally connected at the lobby level, the apartments renovated, and shortly thereafter converted to a cooperative.  Then, on February 6, 1998, The New York Times reported, "In a novel transaction, a majority of the 94 apartment owners in a two-building, 114-unit cooperative in Greenwich Village have individually sold their apartments to Yeshiva University, which will turn them into housing for students at its nearby Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law."  The university had spent $11.6 million for 93 of the studio and one-bedroom units.  It now put another $2 million in to renovations and repairs.

The buildings were renovated again in 2016-17.  They now provided furnished, off-campus housing for New York University, the New School, and the Cardozo School of Law.   Just three years later the newly-organized Alabama Flats purchased the combined properties, while still offering the apartments to students.  

photo by Anthony Bellov

Now called The Alabama, the name was chiseled into the entablature of the portico and a tongue-in-cheek portrait keystone--certain to have caused shudders to Louis Korn--was placed in its arch.

photographs by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for prompting this post.

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com