Joseph C. Wells's 47 Murray Street

 

An announcement appeared in the Morning Courier and Enquirer in 1830 that read:

Mr. Ames, respectfully informs the Ladies of New York, and its vicinity, that he has taken rooms at 47 Murray street, and offers there for inspection, a great variety of miniature paintings, figures, flowers, fruits, animals, landscapes &c.  Terms for tuition 3 dollars.  Ladies attend[ed] at their residence if preferred.  Drawings and Painting in Albums and Scrap Books, elegantly executed.

The house where Mr. Ames rented rooms sat directly opposite the sprawling Columbia College building and grounds.  It was purchased in 1851 by Vermont-born attorney and politician Oscar W. Sturtevant, at a time when the neighborhood was beginning to change from residential to commercial.

It is unclear whether Sturtevant demolished or drastically remodeled 47 Murray Street around 1855.  In either case, the property now held a striking Italianate loft and store building, its design attributed to architect Joseph C. Wells.   Born in England, among Wells's works were the Century Association building on East 15th Street and the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, both completed in the previous decade.

Above the cast iron storefront, the five-story building was clad in Dorcester sandstone.  The openings, which sat on molded sills, were framed by paneled architraves and wore handsome arched pediments supported by foliate brackets.   A complex cornice with paneled frieze completed the design.

Among the initial tenants was glove merchant Van Doren, Richmond & Hasbrouck, which signed a lease in 1858.  By 1861 M. & E. Dittman & Co., dealers in boots and shoes, occupied the store space.  Importers Schanck & Hotop, which dealt in "fancy dry goods," leased the second, fourth and fifth floors.  The third floor was home to fancy goods importer S. D. Nairne.

At around 11:20 on the night of September 9 that year fire was discovered in the building next door.  The New York Times reported, "In about half an hour from the time of the discovery of the fire, the entire building was a sheet of flame."  Around midnight, as 45 Murray Street blazed, firefighters discovered that the fire had spread to the roof and fifth floor of 47 Murray Street.  It advanced to the fourth floor before firefighters could extinguish it.

While 43 Murray Street was completely gutted, 47 Murray Street escaped with about $152,000 worth of structural damage in today's money.  The damages to tenants in fire and water damage was more severe.  Schanck & Hotop suffered nearly $760,000 in losses in today's terms.

Schanck & Hotop continued here following repairs.  They were joined by auctioneer E. T. Wills in 1862.  He liquidated the goods of out-of-business firms, or overstocked merchandise.  On April 1 that year, for instance, he auctioned 500 crates of earthenware, 250 cases of "best quality French glassware," and 500 packages of American flint glass.

On February 18, 1864, The New York Times warned merchants, "A number of rascals are going about the City now and almost daily engaging carmen to take bales and boxes of goods from the walk in front of large stores and warehouses, to be delivered somewhere up town."  Unwitting delivery drivers were duped into loading freight recently delivered at a business, then taking it elsewhere where he was paid and dismissed.

The article noted, "On Tuesday last, a case of goods, valued at $2,240, was in this manner taken from the front of Messrs. Schack & Hotop's store, No. 47 Murray-street."  This time the plan fell apart.  When the cart man arrived at 48 West 19th Street, William Richardson paid him for the trip, but said he made a mistake and gave him a second address.  The driver became suspicious and refused.  A police officer chased Richardson down and arrested him.

Schack & Hotop moved out around 1867.  By 1869 E. T. Wills's auction room had been replaced in the store level by A. Meyerberg, "dealer in fine glassware and crockery."  Occupying upper floors were "fancy hardware" merchants  T. C. Richards, and paper box manufacturer James P. Jones & Son.

Fire broke out in the cellar of 47 Murray Street at 6:00 on the evening of March 15, 1869.  Because A. Meyerberg used the space, there was little flammable merchandise and the fire was confined to the cellar "and the loss to stock by fire was quite small," according to The New York Times.  Upstairs, things were different, however.  The firefighters were proverbial bulls in the china shop.  The newspaper said that in the shop, "the loss from breakage was consequently fully $10,000."  The damage caused by the bumbling firefighters would translate to about $169,000 today.

Political passions ran high during the 1872 Presidential campaign between Horace Greeley and Ulysses S. Grant.  T. C. Richards got into the game by producing campaign buttons

Havana Journal, August 31, 1872 (copyright expired)

In 1885 New York's Great Industries described James P. Jones & Son as "among the leading houses" engaged in the manufacture of boxes.  The article noted, "Particular attention is given to the manufacture of boxes for the fur and the cloak trade, as also for boxes rounded and suitable for [the] musical stringed instrument trade."

The following year something went wrong between the long-established business relationship of father and son.  On July 24, 1886 an announcement in The Evening Post said that Martin W. Jones had "retired from the partnership" by mutual consent, adding, "The business will be conducted by James P. Jones."

At the turn of the century 47 Murray Street was shared by two starkly different tenants.  Batt, Gnost & Baberg manufactured cigars.  In 1901 it employed 60 men and 15 women who worked a grueling 51-hour work week.  More typical of the district was Fensterer & Ruhe, importers of china, glassware.  In July 1905 Glass & Pottery World called it "one of the most interesting stores in New York."

Fensterer & Ruhe had offices, as well, in Berlin and Toronto.  The wide variety of its elegant imports was reflected in a mention in The Pottery, Glass & Brass Salesman on February 16, 1910.  The article said, "At Fensterer & Ruhe's, 47 Murray Street, they have a wonderful array of basketware from one of the leading European factories, embracing jardinières, flower holders, bon-bon baskets and table centers."

The Pottery, Glass & Brass Salesman, June 2, 1910 (copyright expired)

Fensterer & Ruhe remained in 47 Murray Street until 1920, when the tenor of the district was changing.  The 1920's saw more industrial tenants in the building, including automobile supplies merchant Lewis M. Schwartz, the Vlachek Tool Co., and printer Bernard Mayer.

During the Depression years Reed & Schauer, Inc. leased space.  The firm specialized in "outboard motors, parts and service."  By mid-century City Cycle Supply Co. occupied space here.

The neighborhood continued to change and in 2009 47 Murray Street received a make-over.  There were now an office on the ground floor and one apartment each on floors two through four.  A duplex engulfed the fifth and new penthouse level.  Yet outwardly, Joseph C. Wells's venerable building is essentially unchanged.

photographs by the author

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First Presbyterian Church -- 48 Fifth Avenue

photograph by Beyond My Ken

From the beginning of the 18th century throughout the 19th century, New York's religious community was dominated by Anglicans (or Episcopalians post-Revolution).  Their patience with the immigrant Scots and Irish Presbyterians was short at best, yet the original persevering group of eighty worshipers organized the First Presbyterian Church congregation in 1716.

Their little church on Wall Street was closed throughout the American Revolution when the British occupied it first as a barracks and later as a stable.  It was destroyed in the Great Fire of New York in 1776 and the two subsequent buildings were also destroyed by fire, the last in 1835.

By this time New York was spreading northward and after lengthy discussion, land was purchased uptown on Fifth Avenue at 12th Street around 1844 on the outskirts of the expanding Village of Greenwich.  Around Washington Square to the south, fine Federal mansions had already begun rising.

English-born architect Joseph C. Wells was given the commission for the Gothic Revival style building. Wells based the bulk of the building on the Church of St. Saviour in Bath, England and modeled the central tower after the Magdalen Tower at Oxford.  Interestingly, the same tower had inspired Richard Upjohn for his Church of the Ascension just one block to the south, completed in 1841.



The similar towers of the Church of the Ascension (foreground) and First Presbyterian, both based on the Magdalen Tower at Oxford from the collection of the New York Public Library

Wells made optimum use of the broad block-wide lot, setting the brownstone structure back from the street and surrounding the grounds with heavy cast iron fencing.  Rich Gothic tracery both in the tower and large side windows were complimented by stone quatrefoils along the roofline.

Construction was completed in January 1846 and the New York Herald remarked that “The interior of the edifice presents a novel and yet a very agreeable and impressive aspect.  It is of the perpendicular Gothic Style, without columns to sustain the long extending arch, which makes the seats in a remarkable degree available and unobstructed.  This is a new feature in modern architecture.”  According to The New York Times “The new edifice cost $55,000.”   (That amount would equate to around $1.6 million in 2020.)

The Wall Street churchyard was excavated and the deceased re-interred in the south lawn of the new church, according to former deacon John Rhodes.  The gravestones, however, were never re-erected; instead they were stored in the church house basement.

Throughout the 19th century memorial windows were donated by members of the congregation, including three by Tiffany Studios, two by Charles Lamb (of J. & R. Lamb nearby on Sixth Avenue) and five by Maitland Armstrong.  In 1893 McKim, Mead & White, then the foremost architectural firm in the country, was hired to design a south transept; creating one of the most picturesque corners in the city.



The picturesque South Transept and yard

First Presbyterian remained on the cutting edge of theological and social ideas and, on June 25, 1911, initiated the first of its Sunday evening outdoor services “in an attempt to bring the institution into closer touch with the masses.”

“Since New York Was young,” said pastor Dr. Howard Duffield, “it has been a custom for its people to gather on the steps of their dwellings at the end of a hard day’s work and by association with others like themselves to learn that their struggles and tribulations are part of the common lot, and to find sympathy and encouragement in place of their loneliness.  That is just what we are doing this evening.”

Two nearby congregations merged with First Presbyterian in 1918 and, at the same time, called upon fiery Baptist minister Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick to be associate pastor.  Fosdick was renowned for his outspoken opinions against racism and social injustice.

A year later interior renovations were initiated when a chancel was added and the reredos, painted in 1917 by Taber Sears, was relocated to that new wall and repainted.  The striking blue rose window was donated by Robert W. de Forest as part of the renovation.  Completed in September 1920, the 40-foot extension and interior changes, designed by architect John Almy Tompkins of the firm of Grosvenor Atterbury, cost more than $3 million in today's money.

“One of the most striking innovations in the new furnishings is a highly carved Gothic pulpit of oak,” reported The New York Times, “standing ten feet high.”

In the meantime, Dr. Fosdick’s popularity grew as did his following; the church membership burgeoning to 1,800 congregants.  His rhetoric however, offended fundamentalist members and in 1924 amid great controversy and dissension, he resigned his post.  On October 23, he spoke publicly in the church after having formally resigning his position a few days earlier.  Crowds jammed Fifth Avenue, tying up traffic in an attempt to hear his final words.

Toward the end of the 1950's, the need for more space for church programs led to the construction of the Church House toward the rear of the church on 12th Street.  At a time when mid-century sympathies regarding harmonious blending of historical and modern architecture were weak at best, the end product could have been disastrous.  Instead, architect Edgar A. Tafel, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, created a work of art.  The AIA Guide to New York notes that the main church’s Gothic quatrefoils “form the motif for the adjacent, properly reticent, Church House, built more than a century later."  It went on to say that "its copper-clad structure shares Wright’s sense of materials and proportion.”  In addition to the quatrefoil design, Tafel colored the brick of the new building to match the brownstone of the church. The $1 million addition was dedicated on May 15, 1960.

The handsome iron fence was restored in the 1980's and a decade later a major restoration of the south wing was completed.

First Presbyterian’s tradition of support for social justice and tolerance lives on today. The racially-mixed congregation is gay-inclusive and is active in a homeless shelter program. The handsome English church and churchyard on lower Fifth Avenue remains a serene and welcoming oasis.