The Lost Astor Estate "Hellgate" 87th and East End Ave

Four years before the mansion was demolished George Hayward depicted it for Valentine's Manual.   From the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/J.%20Jacob%20Astor's%20Former%20Residence%2086th%20Street%20near%20East%20River-2F3XC5U9F9F9.html

In the mid-18^th century, when the northern edge of New York City was still around Pearl Street and Duane Street, wealthy New Yorkers and British officers established sprawling country estates to the north.  Following William Waldron’s death, his farmland on what would become Manhattan’s Upper East Side was divided and sold. 

The section of the East River here was called Hellegat by the Dutch—loosely translated to mean “bright strait” or “clear opening.”  Over the years English-speaking settlers would corrupt the name to Hell Gate. The rolling landscape near the river offered cooling breezes and refuge from the city’s crowded and dusty conditions during the summer months.

In 1784 the 21-year old John Jacob Astor arrived in New York.  Born in Walldorf, Germany, his command of English was only fair, but his ambition was unparalleled.  He began business by selling musical instruments he brought with him from London.

Astor rented a room from Sarah Cox Todd, a widow, at No. 18 Queen Street.  He struck a romance with his landlady’s daughter, also named Sarah.  On September 19, 1785 the young couple was married.   Sarah was a year older than John and brought to the marriage a $300 dowry.

from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Over the next decades both the family and their fortunes grew.  By 1800 Astor had amassed a fortune of nearly a quarter of a million dollars.  Before long his and Sarah’s combined business acumen would make him the first multi-millionaire in the country.

In 1801 Eliza, the Astors’ seventh child, was born.  She was a frail child and it was possibly this fact that prompted Sarah to urge husband to purchase a summer estate.  Here, she felt, the children could spend time in the fresh, healthful air away from the heat and diseases of the city.  Astor purchased 13 acres, part of the old Waldron farm, and constructed the Georgian-style mansion, Hellgate.

Like the elegant homes on the surrounding estates, Hellgate reflected the family’s wealth and status.  Four two-story columns with elaborate Corinthian capitals gave the residence a grand air.   The view from the porch, past the grounds that ran down to the East River, included Blackwell’s Island.  Astor would spend much time watching the ships navigating the waters below his property.

An unknown artist created this charming watercolor around 1850 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/House%20of%20John%20Jacob%20Astor.-2F3HRGFH2IH.html

Hellgate was located in what today would be approximately 86^th Street to 87^th Street and East End Avenue.  The wealthy neighbors included Commodore Isaac Chauncey, and Archibald Gracie.   Not far away were the estates of the Livingstons, Rikers, and Joneses—all part of the upper crust of New York society.

In his Literary New York, historian Charles Hemstreet described Hellgate as “a square two-story frame dwelling of colonial type, painted white, with deep veranda, wide halls, and spacious rooms; set high upon a hill, backed by a forest of towering trees, and fronted by a vast lawn stretching by gentle slope to the cliff at the riverside.”

Astor’s daughter, Magdalen married the Rev. John Bristed in 1819 and their son, Charles Astor Bristed was born the following year.  When Magdalen died in 1832 the 12-year old Charles was taken to be raised by John Jacob and Sarah Astor; spending most of his youth at Hellgate. 

The lawn swept down towards the river edge -- sketch by Eliza Greatorex from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/East%2088th%20Street%20[64th%20Street%20to%20178th%20Street]-24UAKVNKCJBR.html

Sarah died two years later and John Jacob Astor spent more time in his beloved Hellgate.  Here young Charles would be exposed here to the literary figures who often visited—writers and poets like Washington Irving and Fitz-Greene Halleck.  Washington Irving was a long-term guest in 1836 while he wrote his Astoria, the book commissioned by Astor to document his expedition to Oregon in 1810-1812.

Contact with such figures no doubt contributed to Bristed’s eventually becoming a famous Greek scholar and author.

Following his death Johnson, Fry and Company's 1862 Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans kindly depicted the aged Astor as dignified and robust.  (copyright expired)

By the 1840s Astor was showing his age.  Although his mind was still sharp, he was in serious physical decline.  Philip Hone, famous for keeping precise, detailed journals which were not always complimentary, was a dinner guest of Robert M. Blatchford n October 8, 1844.  Blatchford’s summer home was near Hellgate and John Jacob Astor was also there that night.  The following day Hone wrote in his diary:

I went yesterday to dine at Mr. Blatchford’s at Hell Gate.  The party at dinner consisted of old Mr. J. J. Astor and his train-bearer...Mr. Astor…presented a painful example of the insufficiency of wealth to prolong the life of man. This old gentleman, with his fifteen millions of dollars, would give it all to have my strength and physical ability; and yet, with all this example…I, with a good conscience and in possession of my bodily faculties, sometimes repine at my lot…He sat at the dinner table with his head down upon his breast, saying very little, and in a voice almost unintelligible, the saliva dropping from his mouth, and a servant behind him to guide the victuals which he was eating, and to watch him as an infant is watched.  His mind is good, his observation acute, and he seems to know everything that is going on.  But the machinery is all broken up, and there are some people, no doubt, who think he has lived long enough.”

Four years later, on March 29, 1848, John Jacob Astor died.  Once again Philip Hone commented on the event in his diary.  “John Jacob Astor died this morning, at nine o’clock, in the eighty-fifth year of his age; sensible to the last, but the material of life exhausted, the machinery worn out, the lamp extinguished for want of oil.  Bowed down with bodily infirmity for a long time, he has gone at last, and left reluctantly his unbounded wealth.”

Astor’s beloved grandson, Charles Astor Bristed inherited much of the Astor property, including “my country seat at Hellgate and my lands there, containing about thirteen acres.” 

At the time the relentless northward expansion of the city was still miles away.  But by the end of the Civil War the Upper East Side was seeing rapid development.  By 1869 Charles Bristed was selling off parcels of the Hellgate estate.  That year the Astor mansion was pulled down. 

The sweeping lawns on which the Astor children played are now part of Carl Schurz Park.   

The Lost Waldorf-Astoria Hotel -- 5th Avenue at 33rd Street

When this postcard was printed horse drawn vehicles still traveled along Fifth Avenue and the hyphen was not yet expected between "Waldorf" and "Astoria" (although it was between "New" and "York")

The heated family feud between William Astor and his aunt, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, came to a head in 1890.  Living next door to her was no longer possible for William.  The brownstone mansions his father, John Jacob Astor III, and his uncle, William Backhouse Astor, had built were separated by a wide common garden.  But that garden did not provide enough separation, indeed only an ocean seemed wide enough to distance Astor from his domineering aunt.

Caroline Astor reigned supreme over New York society in the 1890s.  Her mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34^th Street was the scene of annual balls for three hundred or more of society’s most elite.  The quiet of her refined home was interrupted only by the gentle clop of carriage horses on the paving stones of Fifth Avenue.  Before moving permanently to England, her nephew would devise his final revenge.

William briefly toyed with the idea of erecting a stable on the site of his father’s house, then came up with a more lucrative idea.  He commissioned Henry J. Hardenberg to design a massive high-end hotel next door to his Aunt Caroline’s staid mansion.  Ground was broken in November 1890 and Carolina Astor’s life immediately changed.

Caroline Astor's venerable brownstone was dwarfed by her nephew's new hotel -- photo Mina Rees Library, The Graduate Center, CUNY

For three years Caroline Astor’s house was shaken as the nerve-racking construction continued.  After the grand opening on March 24, 1893, she was forced to share the block with carriages and hansoms and her sidewalk was crowded with the comings and goings of rushing travelers.

William Waldorf Astor’s project embodied more than mere reprisal.  The real estate-savvy millionaire came from a family of hotel owners and he recognized the profit-making potential of the site.  Business was already inching nearer and nearer to the 34^th Street neighborhood and a luxury hotel north of the Fifth Avenue Hotel at 23^rd Street would be welcomed—at least by businessmen and travelers if not by the neighbors.

The 13-story hotel that dwarfed Caroline Astor’s venerable home was recognized as the last word in opulence.  Hardenbergh’s creation had 530 rooms and 350 private bathrooms.  The sumptuous public spaces were immense and of the more than $3 million total cost, $800,000 was spent on interior fixtures and furnishings—about $18.5 million in today’s dollars.

The New York Times commented on the architecture, the upper stories of which were slightly reminiscent of the architect’s Dakota Apartments on Central Park.  “The building has thirteen stories, but its walls are so broken up with gables, balconies, and recessed construction, that its great height is imposing, and no monotony of tall, coffin-like outline wearies the eye," said the article.

Astor hired George C. Boldt, manager of the Bellevue and Stratford Hotels in Philadelphia, to run the Waldorf.  Boldt personally approved the furniture—most custom made by W. & D. Sloane--the designs of some of it drawn up in Boldt’s own office.

“Duveen of London made much of the elaborate furniture for the most splendid apartments,” reported The New York Times on February 13, 1893, as the hotel was nearing completion.  “All the china was made in France.  All the glass to be used in the hotel, except for that for the servants, was made by Baccarat of Paris.”

Astor pulled out all the stops in decorating the interiors to guarantee that his was New York’s most elegant hotel.  The main entrance hall rose 21 feet and boasted Sienna marble pilasters with solid bronze capitals.  Off the entrance hall was the garden court filled with full-grown palms and flowering plants.  The German-inspired black oak-paneled café on this level, for men only, featured unusual lighting fixtures.  “The lights in this room will spring from stag-horn torches held by carved figures of the Tyrolerweibschen, or Tyrolean women,” said The Times.  The cost of the carvings in the café alone was $38,000.

The beamed ceiling of the main reception room was hand stenciled -- photo Library of Congress

Several of the public rooms drew on European models.  The main dining room was a reproduction of a great hall in the palace of King Ludwig of Bavaria.  Black marble pillars with green veining lined both sides of the room.  The ceiling was decorated with three painted panels by Crowninshield of Boston.

The Ladies' Reception Room was a reproduction of a Marie Antoinette apartment -- photo Library of Congress

The Ladies’ Drawing Room, off the dining room, was a “perfect reproduction of an apartment of Marie Antoniette,” said The New York Times.  “It is oval in shape, with recesses.  The woodwork is of white enamel and upon the walls are plate-glass mirrors.  The ceiling in this room is a canvas painted last year in Paris by Will H. Low.  Its subject is the birth of Venus.”  Low told The New York Times journalist that he considered this painting his “magnum opus.”

A corridor fireplace features an inlaid clock.  Marble pilasters, mosaic floors and Empire furniture complete the luxurious setting -- The American Architect and Building News, September 17, 1895 (copyright expired)

The Turkish salon, decorated by Herter Brothers, was also on this level.  The floors and walls were of marble mosaics and the woodwork was teak and satinwood.  “The woodwork is trimmed with copper, with passages from the Koran inlaid with silver,” reported the newspaper.

The ballroom was intended to dazzle.  Fowler of New York was commissioned to paint the ceiling which, in three panels, depicted figures of classical dancing girls.  The furniture was gilded by French artists.  At the end of the room was a conservatory.  The entire ballroom wing could be closed off from the common areas when leased for a private function.

On the second floor were the “state apartments,” thirteen private dining rooms, reception rooms and dressing rooms.  The sumptuous accommodations were designed “for the proper reception of very great personages” and Boldt insisted that they “are not to be rented for the permanent occupation of anybody upon any consideration.”

The state apartments included a drawing room, a “great dining room,” a breakfast room, secretary’s room, two music rooms and ten or more bedrooms and offices.  The drawing room was decorated in the style of Henry II with antique Flemish tapestries.  The music rooms were Louis XVI in style and the bedrooms “French.”  The breakfast and dining rooms were “in pure Adams.”  Boldt furnished the built-in china cabinets in the dining room with his personal collection of china, which he had insured for $35,000.

Interestingly, Astor had the original ceilings and mahogany woodwork and furnishings of his former mansion installed on this floor in what were called the “Astor dining rooms.”

The upper floors contained both transitory and permanent living apartments.  “Of all these rooms, no two have the same furnishings or decorations,” stressed The New York Times.  “Little gilded upright pianos, made expressly for this place, are found in many rooms.  Every room has a large closet.”

To enjoy the luxury of the new Waldorf Hotel, guests would pay a minimum of $2.50 per day (about $60 today).  “From this minimum the rents for single rooms and suites will run up to substantial prices,” said the newspaper.

William Waldorf Astor was no fool.  The upper-floor corridors running south-to-north led into dead end brick walls.  The entrance on 33^rd Street was several steps above the sidewalk level, seemingly higher than necessary.   The designs which seemed odd upon the hotel’s opening would make sense later.

If Astor was no fool, neither was his manager.  Before the doors were thrown open to business, Boldt arranged for a glittering charity event to be held in the ballroom on the evening of March 14.  A concert to benefit St. Mary’s Free Hospital and the Saturday and Sunday Hospital Fund was arranged.  The event was patronized by leading New York ladies.  Boldt realized it was a way of luring the cream of society into the new hotel built as an insult to Mrs. Astor.  One thousand tickets were printed and were available at the homes of some of Manhattan’s best-known socialites (Caroline Astor’s name was notably not on the list).  The Times noted “Besides these, nearly 400 other ladies prominent in local society have expressed their wish to be known as interested in the occasion.”

The Waldorf was open only a month before labor problems ensued.  On April 17, a group of waiters told reporters that they “had to work sixteen hours a day for $60 a month, and had to provide their own dress suits, costing $45 each.”  They also complained about the distribution of tips, complaining that forty men worked principally at answering bells “and had little chance to gather tips.”

Almost simultaneously, waiter William Prince got into a disagreement with George Boldt.  When the Duke of Veragua took a suite of apartments in the hotel, Prince saw the opportunity to garner large tips.  Instead, Boldt provided the Duke four waiters from the café as his personal staff.

Prince told The New York Times, “So I went to Mr. Boldt and said: ‘If I am not good enough to wait upon a Duke I will go.  I have waited on the Prince of Wales and the King of Naples.’  Then I told him that I and my men objected to sorting out ladies’ soiled clothes and to sending them to the wash.”

George Boldt took care of the problem immediately.  He fired William Prince.  Not immune to employee complaints, however, he also immediately discontinued the practice of male hotel staff sorting female guests’ soiled laundry.

Another labor-related problem came up during that first month of operation.  In 1893, men of all social strata prided themselves on their muttonchops, their moustaches and, in some cases, their beards.  George Boldt insisted that the hotel hackmen—the drivers of the horse-drawn taxis—be clean shaven.  The new rule did not go down well with the men.

On April 10, 1893, The New York Times ran a headline above the story of the hackmen’s meeting the night before.  “To Save Their Whiskers—Waldorf Hotel Hackmen Are All In Arms.”  The newspaper pointed out that all the men present wore facial hair.  “The genus whisker, like most of nature’s more beautiful works, has many species.  They were all on view last night.”

The drivers agreed, in the end, that they would not shave.  “What we want,” said the Chairman, “are shorter hours, larger pay, and whiskers as short or long as we like.”

Sunshine flowed into the Palm Garden through golden-tinted stained glass -- The American Architect and Building News, September 17, 1895 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, Caroline Astor attempted to ignore the massive hotel next door.  But by the fall of 1894, her pride gave way.  On November 4, The New York Times reported “the announcement that a huge hotel is projected for the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street has been received without surprise.

“The mansion which now ornaments the corner is the one occupied for so many years by Mr. and Mrs. William Astor and their children.  It has been the scene of numerous brilliant social functions.  A quarter of a century ago, the man who would have predicted its demolition within fifty years to make way for trade would have found no believers.”

Caroline’s son, John Jacob Astor, began construction of a gargantuan double mansion across from Central Park to house his mother on one side and him on the other.  And feud or not, the Astors valued income more than familial pride.  Negotiations between John and William resulted in a new hotel, the Astoria, with connecting corridors to the Waldorf.  William Waldorf Astor’s blind hallways now made sense, as did the elevated 33^rd Street lobby.  Because 34^th Street was slightly upgrade, the lobby of the Astoria would be level with that of the Waldorf.

Henry J. Hardenberg was back to design the harmonious new structure.   As it rose from the site of Caroline Astor’s former mansion and gardens, business continued as usual at the Waldorf Hotel.

In January 1896, the routine of society balls and dinners was interrupted when The Ladies Home Journal rented the ballroom as a picture gallery.  Nearly 200 drawings done for the publication by well-known artists such as Charles Dana Gibson, Arthur B. Frost and Eric Pape were to be exhibited for free for three days from the 14^th through the 17^th.   It was a novel idea, yet it posed specific problems for the exhibitors.

“The problem of utilizing the dainty gold and white dancing room of the Waldorf for a picture exhibition was one requiring no little invention and skill for its solution,” said a newspaper.  “The contract prohibited the driving of a nail, or the disfigurement in any way of the apartment.  As a result, a false wall of much strength, mortised and put together with screws, has been constructed, electric lights have been arranged, and by much forethought and careful preparation, every timber being fitted to its proper place, the whole structure was put up in short order, and subsequently decorated with attractive hangings.”

On April 28, 1897, as the Astoria Hotel was in its last months of construction, John Jacob Astor--perhaps--offered an olive branch to his cousin.  That night a magnificent ball was held at the Waldorf in honor of Ulysses S. Grant.  The New York Times reported, “The floor was a brilliant sight.  Again mere citizens were disregarded.”  The first couple the newspaper noted was “Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor.”  Jack Astor had finally stepped foot into his cousin’s hotel.

Despite that gesture, the new Astoria Hotel was a conspicuous attempt to outshine the Waldorf.  Two weeks before the opening, the newer building was still crowded with some of the nation’s most important mural artists.  “The artists have been at work upon these paintings, which are unusually important and interesting examples of mural decorative work, for some months past,” said The Times on October 3, 1897.  The two ceiling paintings for the ballroom, executed by Edwin Howland Blashfield, measured 65-by-44 feet.  The subjects were Music and The Dance and incorporated 28 and 12 life-sized figures respectively.

Charles Yardley Turner was given the commission to execute the frieze of the Astoria restaurant which would continue into combined restaurant of the Waldorf.  Turner lined the walls with “seated or kneeling female figures holding or playing musical instruments.  Those on the north end are boys carrying birds, peacocks, guinea hens, and roosters.  The female figures on the Fifth Avenue side, as well as those on the west wall, hold bunches of grapes and wild flowers.”

The two hotels were seamlessly designed to appear as one -- photograph Library of Congress

On November 1, the doors to the new 16-story Astoria Hotel were thrown open.  George C. Boldt would co-managed both hotels, however it would be some time before the hyphen was inserted, cementing  relations between the two hotels, if not the families.

Like the Waldorf, which The Times said was “now dwarfed by its big connecting sister hotel,” the Astoria drew on historical models.  The Ladies’ Reception Room was “Pompeian,” and the main dining room “Italian Renaissance.”  The ceiling of the dining room was 21-feet high, upheld by Russian marble columns.   The garden court opened off the dining room, an extension of the Waldorf palm garden.   Tw0 stories high it was ringed by marble balustrades.

photograph from the NYPL Collection

The Astor Gallery stretched 102 feet along 34^th Street “and follows in decoration and furnishing the famous ballrooms of the Hotel Soubise of Paris,” reported The Times.  Twelve panels painted by Edward Simmons depicted the four seasons and twelve months.  Leading off the Gallery was the Louis Seize-style Myrtle Room for private functions like weddings.  There was also a “Colonial Room” on this level.

The ballroom was designed to impress.  Anticipation built as guests traveled through increasingly dramatic spaces.  Visitors climbed the ballroom staircase to the two-story ballroom foyer.  From the foyer ran the ballroom promenade, 95-feet long, at the end of which were the doors to the ballroom.

Guests entered a cavernous space.  The ceiling was three stories above the floor.  “There is not a pillar or column in the entire room,” reported The New York Times.  “The room is finished in old ivory, picked out with gold, while the curtains and furnishings of the two tiers of boxes are of crimson plush.  There is a movable stage on the south side of the room, with a proscenium which can seat an orchestra of 100 musicians.”

More than 1000 persons could be seated on the ballroom floor, while two tiers of boxes could handle 250 more.   

A vintage postcard depicts the Ballroom set up with chairs.

The collaboration of two feuding cousins was a phenomenal success.  The Waldorf-Astoria became synonymous with wealth and luxury in hotels.  The long marble corridor that connected the two buildings earned the nickname “Peacock Alley.”  Here men in silk hats and women in pearls and plumed millinery strutted among potted palms for the mere purpose of being seen.

The Waldorf-Astoria overtook Delmonico’s and Sherry’s as the place to entertain.  And Boldt kept up with the times.  He initiated Monday-morning musicales, a trend that caught on with society and installed ping-pong tables for women when indoor tennis became the rage.  He brought in telephones, dumb waiters for room service, pneumatic tubes for rapid mail delivery, and instituted the “floor clerk.”

Society women took on two new routines: lunching out and high tea.  Both were best done if one was seen in the Palm Garden.  Tables here were booked sometimes weeks in advance.  Unescorted women meeting for lunch or tea was made possible only by the forward-thinking actions of George Boldt.

photograph NYPL Collection

In 1912 he told a reporter “I was the first man in New York to make it possible for a woman to come into a New York hotel alone.  The day the Waldorf opened, this fear of hotels ceased.  Look at any big hotel corridor now and you will find it jammed with women, more than half of whom have come alone to the hotels to keep appointments with friends, make visits, have tea or attend some social function.”

As World War I drew to a close, the Waldorf-Astoria hosted over 2,000 affairs a year--from dinners for royalty to card parties.  Guests scored a social coup when the maitre d’hotel addressed them by name.  The hotel, which was now taking in profits of $1 million per year, had 1,385 bedrooms and 500 bathrooms.

In 1928, the Waldorf-Astoria celebrated its 35^th anniversary by decorating the lobby with baskets of flowers and flying flags from every flagpole.  But flowers and flags could not stave off the inevitable.  By now the Victorian trappings were severely out of date as modern Art Deco hotels rose throughout the city.

By the end of the year, the Bethlehem Engineering Corporation had purchased the “site” in a deal estimated at between $14 and $16 million.  On May 3, 1929, the last guest walked out of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ending an era in belle époque history.  Within a few weeks demolition crews were ripping down the grand hotel.  The Palm Garden, Peacock Alley, and the mural-walled Dining Room fell under the wrecker’s ball.

The final indignation came when architectural residue--marble statuary and columns, bronze fittings and other elements—were illegally dumped into the Atlantic fifteen miles off the coast of New York.

In the place of the once magnificent Waldorf-Astoria Hotel rose the equally magnificent Art Deco Empire State Building.

Empire State Building photograph taken by the author


The 1894 Hotel St. Cloud Annex -- No. 143 West 41st Street

photo by Alice Lum

Along with its extensive real estate dealings, the Astor family was familiar with the business of running hotels.    The first John Jacob Astor started the tradition in 1836 with his Astor House—at the time the most opulent hotel in New York at the time.

In 1892 the fashionable St. Cloud Hotel sat at the corner of 42^nd Street and Broadway.  When it was built in 1868 it was far uptown and considered a risky proposition.   But the owners gambled on potential business from Cornelius Vanderbilt’s ambitious Grand Central Depot which was about to be constructed.  The New York Times later reported that “proved to be the case.”

For over two decades the Rand brothers had operated the St. Cloud.  Now, on October 19, 1892, John Jacob Astor IV purchased the hotel for $850,000—a staggering $19.5 million today.   In reporting the deal, The New York Times noted “In addition to the hotel proper, the property includes two four-story brownstone houses adjoining on Forty-second Street and a narrow vacant plot in the rear on Forty-first Street.”

Astor kept the Rand brothers on as proprietors and the press announced “no intention at present of rebuilding or in any wise altering the property.  It was bought merely as a real-estate investment for surplus funds, in accordance with the well-known policy of the Astors.”

Nevertheless, the pesky 16-foot wide lot behind the hotel was soon improved.  A year later Astor commissioned architect Philip C. Brown to design an annex to the hotel here.   If Brown designed any other buildings in his career, they are undocumented. 

photo by the author

Completed in 1894 the eight-story Romanesque Revival style structure was connected internally to the main hotel.  Brown faced the structure in buff-colored brick and stepped away from the Romanesque style long enough to lavish it with Beaux Arts decorations.  The architect treated the skinny addition with dignity, adding a dramatic three-story arched opening above the second floor.  Decorated with terra cotta, it foreshadows the self-confident theater architecture that would soon flood the Times Square area.

The annex offered additional rooms and rentable semi-public rooms.  As it was being constructed the Knickerbocker Whist Club was incorporated in the fall of 1893.  Organized by Edward A. Smith, Harry S. Williams, John Hopper and J. C. Wilson it started in the Broadway Central Hotel.   The card game had fallen out of fashion for a period, but was suddenly regaining popularity.

On March 8, 1894 The New York Times noticed that “The game of whist has been having a quiet but unmistakable revival not only in this city, but in other parts of the country, this Winter.  The youngest organization in New-York which devotes itself entirely to the game is the Knickerbocker Whist Club, whose rooms are in the Hotel Wellington Annex, at Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street.”

Although the Knickerbocker was the youngest of the clubs, it was among the best.  “The Knickerbockers do not say much, but they go right on winning matches with a regularity which is exasperating to their rivals,” said The Times.

In 1897 the club moved its headquarters to the St. Cloud annex; what The Sun called “larger and better quarters.”  The club managed to have its own private entrance to the building on 41^st Street.   The strait-laced Victorian players were quick to point out that there was nothing illicit in their games.

“The fundamental idea of this club is the encouragement of playing whist strictly as an intellectual amusement, no betting of any kind being permitted.”

The Sun commented on the affordable cost of joining the club.  “The annual dues have been fixed at the very moderate sum of $10, no initiation fee, and the rooms will be open to members from 2 to 12 daily.”

A year after moving in, the Knickerbocker Whist Club initiated a startling concept—they invited women.   On February 2, 1898 The Sun reported that “To-night will be the second guest night at the Knickerbocker Whist Club, 143 West Forty-first street, and a large number of women are expected.  The game will be conducted on the Mitchell compass system, and valuable prizes will be given to the women making the best scores.”

The experiment worked.  On February 13 The Sun announced “The Knickerbocker Whist Club has determined to place its quarters at 143 West Forty-first street at the disposal of women players, for their exclusive use every Monday from 2 to 6 o’clock, beginning to-morrow.  Several New York women have arranged to be on hand to organize a club of some kind.  The only expense for the use of the rooms will be the card money, 10 cents for each player.”

The newspaper approved of the forward thinking move that included the feminine sex in the games.  “This is certainly a move in the right direction, and it is an opportunity that should not be neglected by the many women players who have been wishing for suitable quarters in a convenient neighborhood.”

Other rooms were leased as the committee headquarters of the Republican County Committee and the Republican Party in the City of New-York.

In 1902 Astor ordered the demolition of the aging Hotel St. Cloud.  In its place he stipulated a grand hotel that would cost no less than $2 million.  The 16-foot wide annex on 41^st Street was allowed to stay; possibly because of its problematic dimensions.

It is tempting to think that the Knickerbocker Whist Club had something to do with the naming of the grand new hotel.  Whether or not, the 16-story Knickerbocker Hotel opened on October 23, 1906, after a full four years of construction.

The first floor of the annex was converted to the service entrance to the new hotel—removing the unglamorous deliveries from the sight of patrons and passersby.    At the same time an attic addition was constructed.  Two handsome copper-clad dormers crowned by peaked pediments were guarded by menacing griffins on pedestals.

photo by Alice Lum

John Jacob Astor died when the R.M.S. Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.  His 20-year old son, Vincent, immediately became one of the wealthiest young men in America, and new owner of the Knickerbocker.  In 1920 he converted the massive hotel to retail space on the ground floor and offices above.  The New-York Tribune mentioned that the property included “a 16.8 foot outlet at 143 West forty-first Street,” but gave no details on any related conversion.

However the annex, too, was transformed into office space.  In 1930 the new publishing firm, Walton Book Co., established it offices here.  One of the first books It published from No. 143 was a new edition of John Marshall’s “Life of Washington.”

The block of West 41^st Street suffered indignation throughout most of the 20^th century as industrial buildings, many connected with the garment industry, replaced older structures.   By October 1988 when the Landmarks Preservation Commission met to discuss landmark designation for the Knickerbocker, the 41^st Street block was decidedly gritty.

During the hearings the owner of the old hotel building objected “to including a small annex on 41^st Street,” according to the then-building manager Holly Hunter.

The stone griffins and marvelous copper dormers steal the spotlight from the building's other decorative elements -- photo by Alice Lum

Philip C. Brown’s only known work, the skinny St. Cloud Hotel Annex, survives today probably because of its abnormally narrow footprint.   Despite its arcane location and less-than-gentle use for nearly a century, it retains its dignified posture and its scary griffins on the roof.

 Many thanks to reader Rich Stueber for requesting this post

LaGrange Terrace -- "Colonnade Row"

from the collection of the Library of Congress

In the 18th century in England, elegant rowhouses designed to appear as a single structure began appearing in fashionable cities like Bath.  By the Regency period London's wealthy were living in similar developments along Regent's Park designed by leading architects like John Nash.  The idea took root in New York City with La Grange Terrace.

At the turn the 19th century Lafayette Place extended only as far north as Great Jones Street.  In the area between Great Jones and Astor Place was an entertainment hall, Vauxhall Garden, established by Frenchborn Mssr. Delacroix who offered a variety of amusements.  John Jacob Astor purchased the plot in 1804 for $45,000 and Delacroix continued to pay rent on the space for another 20 years.

By 1826 Lafayette Place was extended north where it ended in a cul-de-sac at Astor Place.  Here, in 1831, Seth Green, an Albany builder and speculator, envisioned the grandest homes outside of London.  The nine houses he began building would become known as La Grange Terrace, named after the country estate of Marquis de Lafayette.  When completed in 1833 in what by now was the fashionable Bond Street area, they were unparalleled.

stereopticon view of LaGrange Terrace, mid-19th Century (author's collection)

Clad entirely of white marble they boasted 15-foot deep yards to the front.  The first floor projected eight feet, above which a two-story high colonnade of Corinthian columns (cut by prisoners from Sing-Sing) supported the cornice.  Tall French doors opened onto the balconies where the columns were connected by wrought iron railings.   Elegant marble wreaths lined up over each door and window lintel and carved antefixae lined the roofline.  Low marble porches extended to the sidewalk.

Each 27-foot wide residence had 26 rooms.  Astonishingly, the owners enjoyed an ingenious form of central heating, indoor toilets, a "bathing room," and both hot and cold running water -- comforts that would not become common for nearly a century.  Inside mahogany doors swung on silver hinges.  Marble mantles were installed under deep plaster ceiling details and carved Grecian columns separated the parlors.

photographs from the collection of the New York Public Library

The row became home to come of the city's most esteemed families.  John Jacob Astor II took possession of No. 424.  Cornelius Vanderbilt and Washington Irving lived here as did Warren Delano, grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt.  And when President John Tyler courted Julia Gardiner, it was at her father's home at No. 430.  Across the street the Astor Library was built and, nearby, the Opera House.

In 1851 Israel Underhill purchased Nos. 43 and 45 and transformed the residences into a "family hotel" called The Oriental for members of the upperclass who did not care to "keep house."  Here wealthy families could enjoy the status of the address and the comforts of the Terrace without the bother of maintaining their own staff of servants.

The trend of New York's priviledged, however, has always been to move northward ahead of the commercial district.  By the 1860s millionaires moved northward into Murray Hill and Fifth Avenue.  The Bond Street district began changing as the wealthy, one-by-one, left La Grange Terrace.

In 1875 the five southern-most houses became The Colonnade Hotel with an entrance on Broadway.  By the turn of the century they had been dynamited, leaving only the four houses that remain today.  The Oriental lasted as a boarding house until 1915, a few years after the Lagrange porches and yards had been stripped away to enlarge the sidewalk.  In 1918 an unsightly two story addition was added to the roof of Nos. 42 and 43.  The demise of the grandest residential development in city history was well on its way.

In 1911 the row was already in serious decline.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Ignored and forgotten La Grange Terrace, which at some point began being known as The Colonnade, continued to deteriorate.  A hodge-podge of shops infiltrated the street levels.  The marble, attacked by acid rain and vehicle exhaust, eroded.  Floors sagged.  The graceful marble artefixae along the cornice fell away until today they exist only on the northernmost house.

In 1965 the Landmarks Preservation Commission gained landmark designation for La Grange Terrace, touting it as "...four remaining town houses which are unified in appearance by a beautifully executed two-story Corinthian colonnade.  The group is one of the treasures of our architectural heritage and is a superb example of civic-minded planning."

Unfortunately, landmark designation does not ensure preservation nor restoration.  Today the once-imposing marble houses are in a heartbreaking state of deterioration.  But even in their present condition, they are a remarkable relic of an elegant age.