The Lost Thomas Cole House - 1 Laight Street

 

photograph by Samuel Landsman from the collection of the New York Public Library

On September 13, 1802, the Board of Trinity Episcopal Church resolved to erect a chapel of convenience north of the city.  Construction of St. John's Park, anchored by a Georgian-style chapel designed by John McComb, began in 1803.  By the time St. John's Chapel was completed in 1807, the manicured, fence enclosed park--bounded by Varick, Laight, Hudson and Beach Streets--was being girded by refined Federal-style mansions.

The elegant, brick-faced residence at the head of Laight Street was three-and-a-half stories tall and 27-1/2-feet wide.  Although it faced Varick Street, it took the address of 1 Laight Street.  Because it sat on the northern side of the churchyard, its residents enjoyed windows on the southern side.  A stone stoop with wrought iron cage newels rose to the double-doored, arched entryway.  Its frame, along with the paneled window lintels, were made of marble.

photograph by Samuel Landsman from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Hoffman family occupied the house in 1827.  A. M. Hoffman was a surveyor, most likely employed by the city, and Henry Hoffman was a wholesale grocer.

Commission merchant Richard Reed and his family next occupied the mansion, here as early as 1829.  On the night of September 30, 1832, a sneak thief entered the house and made off with four silver and six silver-plated "table spoons."  A notice in the New-York Evening Post the next day said, "To any person returning said spoons, or giving information where they can be found, a suitable reward will be given by applying as above."

The house was sold on March 4, 1834 to Dr. George Ackerley and his wife, the former Anne Cole.  Born in 1797, Ackerley would be described by historian Henry Howe in 1891 as "the noted New York surgeon."  He and Anne were part of the "English immigrant colony" in Steubenville, Ohio when they were married in February 1821.  At the time, Anne's brother, Thomas, was working in the family's wallpaper factory, designing wallpaper patterns and engraving them into woodblocks.

By the time the Ackerleys moved into 1 Laight Street, Thomas Cole had transitioned to portrait painting.  He moved into the mansion with the Ackerleys.  Interestingly, Cole listed his profession in 1836 as "architect."

The Course of Empire, Consummation was among the works Cole executed while living here.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

That year, on November 22, Thomas Cole married Maria Bartow in her family's house in Catskill, New York.  Interestingly, Cole lived with Maria and her parents in the Bartow house during part of the year, while living with Anne and George in the remainder (most likely during the winter season).  Maria remained year round in Catskill, occasionally taking a steamboat to New York City to attend Thomas's lectures.  When they were apart, the pair maintained regular communications, with Maria often giving Thomas advice on his patrons.  In her letter on February 12, 1844, for instance, she urged:

Don't work too hard but go into society as much as you can--& now I Think of it, why need you propose either of your subjects of Pictures, Tell them you have Subjects, & what you will paint for them, & be sure you have it in the bargin [sic] that you may exhibit them if you wish to.

In the meantime, George Ackerley maintained a side practice of patent medicines.  In April 1841, he advertised Dr. Ackeley's Enteritic Balm in The New York Sun.  It guaranteed in part:

A certain remedy for the summer complaint of children, cholera morbus, dysentery, diarrhea, obstinate vomiting, cramp in the stomach and bowels, lead cholic, bilious and flatulent cholic, &c, &c.

The ad said the balm had cured 2,200 cases over the past eight years.  Ackerley also marketed Dr. Ackerley's Vegetable Pills, a "valuable agreeable and safe medicine for Ladies at all times," and Dr. Ackerley's Tonic Bitters, which "have done wonders where the Digestive and Nervous System have been out of order."  And an advertisement on April 8, 1842 in the New-York Tribune touted Dr. Ackerley's Purifying Anti-Scrofulous Syrup.  It said that, in part, that the medicine:

...cures scrofulous affections and other diseases occasioned by or attended with an impure state of the blood, restoring healthy action, diseased growths are stopped and scattered, and sores and ulcers healed...Prepared and sold by Dr. G. Ackerley, at his office for consultation and advice, No. 1 Laight st., corner Canal street.

A month after that ad appeared, George Ackerley was dead.  He died at the age of 45 on May 22, 1842.  Two days later, the New-York Tribune announced, "His friends, and those of his brother-in-law, Thomas Cole, are respectfully invited to attend his funeral this afternoon at 4 o'clock, from his late residence, No. 1 Laight street."

Anne Cole Ackerley soon left the mansion and in 1850 it was being rented by stockbroker S. A. Darling and his family.  The property was sold at auction on November 19, 1851.

Reflecting the gradual change in St. John's Park, Jules Poinsignon converted a portion of 1 Laight Street to a restaurant.  It was operated by William D. Benson in 1856 and '57, and in 1860 Charles Koss took over, running the former mansion as a hotel.

An advertisement in the New-York Tribune on February 4, 1863 offered the commercial properties at 394 and 396 Canal Street for sale.  The parcel included 1 Laight Street "in the rear."  The three properties would be forever linked going forward.

Charles Hoharst leased 1 Laight Street, running it as a boarding house with an "oyster house" in the former restaurant space.  Three years after opening, he lost his new puppy and on January 31, 1866, advertised:

$5 Reward--Lost a Bull Terrier pup, about 3 months old, white with brindle spots.  Had on a plated collar, with the name of Charles Hoharst on it.  Whoever will return the same to 1 Laight st. will receive the above reward.

Hoharst's reward would translate to about $100 in 2025.

In 1867, Trinity Church sold St. John's Park to the Hudson River Railroad Company.  The firm immediately began plans to replace the refined private green with a freight terminal.  Understandably, one-by-one the wealthy homeowners abandoned their mansions and moved uptown.

In 1909, 1 Laight Street (left) was dwarfed by a commercial structure.  The former mansion on the opposite of the chapel (right) is a near mirror-image.  photograph by George F. Arata from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Canal Street and Laight Street properties were soon occupied by Huntington Brothers & Company, manufacturers of women's garments.  Presumably 1 Laight Street was used as its offices.  The firm remained until 1896.  Arkin Brothers, a maker of boxes, leased the properties in February 1901, and in May 1914, another box company, the Heppe-Schoen Paper Box Co., moved in.  Amazingly, through it all the exterior of the venerable Laight Street mansion remained essentially intact.

Edwin Davis French created this depiction in 1898.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Then, in 1918, the widening of Varick Street eradicated not only 1 Laight Street, but the magnificent St. John's Chapel.  The former Ackerley mansion was one of the last vestiges of what had been Manhattan's most exclusive residential enclave.

Horgan & Slattery's 1893 No. 57 Laight Street

Unlike many of Tribeca's muscular Romanesque Revival loft buildings, No. 57 Laight St. is light and graceful.

In 1828 R. Pattison lived in the brick-faced home at No. 57 Laight Street.  Its 25-foot width suggests that it was on par with the Federal-style mansions that ringed St. John's Park, just a block away.   Despite the apparent upscale tone of the house itself, Pattison's rear yard privy was deemed "a nuisance" by the Common Council on December 29 that year.

Change in the neighborhood came quickly.  The house was being operated as a boarding house in the 1830s, run by the widow Hannah Vanriper.  In 1846 the ground floor had been converted for business and Henry Hollsberg and his family lived above his grocery store.  By 1860 the Helms family owned the building, and the grocery store was run by brothers Dederick and Frederick.  The Helms family held title to the building as late as 1875.

What had been a neighborhood of wealth and refinement was now one of warehouses and commerce.  St. John's Park was demolished for the Hudson River Railroad's private freight terminal.  The roomers in No. 57 Laight Street were common laborers.  Among them in 1880 was the family of 11-year old Edward Radcliffe.

Edward was a problem for his parents.  The New York Times described him as "a wayward boy."  He ran away from home the first week of May that year, and "was reclaimed by his father at Police Headquarters."   Two weeks later, on May 25, Edward was "lounging in the express office" at No. 401 Washington Street where the Custom House broker gave him whiskey.  His father found him drunk in a Washington Street stable.  He took him home, gave him supper and the family all went to bed at around 8:00.

Although Radcliffe checked on his son at around 2:00 a.m., the boy attempted another escape soon afterward.  He tried to slip out through the window with fatal results.  His "mutilated" body was found in the rear yard by a milkman at around 4:00.

By the time of the tragedy the old building sat on valuable real estate.  In 1892 architects Horgan & Slattery, acting as their own developers, demolished it and commenced construction on a modern loft building.  Their Renaissance Revival-style factory and store, completed the following year, was especially pleasing.

What little dimension there was on the flat-faced facade was created by slightly recessing the three-story arcades of the Collister Street elevation.  Even the sills and lintels were flush with the brick.  Instead of overt decoration, Horgan & Slattery used materials to make the structure stand out.

Variegated orange-hued ironspot Roman brick gave life and movement to the facade.  Bullnose bricks rounded and softened the corners.  Thin brick voussoirs created dramatic sunburst-like effects over the arched openings.

Rounded corners, variegated brick and visually-powerful voussoirs eliminated the need for conspicuous decoration.

Rather surprisingly in a neighborhood of freight warehouses and produce concerns, No. 57 Laight Street filled with glass and mirror dealers.  In 1898 its tenant list included Schrenk & Co., "looking glass;" John Proessl, who also dealt in looking glasses; the United Bavarian Looking Glass Works; and Tritschler, Winterhalder & Co., "druggists' glassware."

Their landlord was Anna Woerishoffer, whose husband, well-known stock broker Charles F. Woerishoffer, had died in 1886.  His estate was valued at upwards to $4 million--a significant $105 million today.  Anna generously used her wealth for public good.  In January 1910, for instance, she donated $100,000 to the German Hospital and Dispensary, and on October 24, 1911 was recognized by the Prussian Government for her "distinguished services in the field of social betterment."

She nevertheless retained possession of No. 57 Laight Street until 1912, when she sold it to the Denver Chemical Manufacturing Company.  A tragic side note was that, despite Anna Woerishoffer's selfless philanthropies and social work, she became a victim of the anti-German sentiment that swept America during World War I.  On March 20, 1918, according to Internal Revenue Service documents, she was "held to be a German subject, and an alien enemy."

The Denver Chemical Manufacturing Company spent $750 in 1913 on what alteration plans described as "fireproofing."  Despite its name, the firm was founded and based in New York City.  It made one item, a cream marketed as Antiphlogistine, which it introduced in 1893.

The original trademark application for Antiphlogistine described it as "possessing curative properties and being a curative remedy for injuries and acute and chronic inflammatory affections."  By the time Denver Chemical Manufacturing Company moved into the Laight Street building, the cream was being marketed as an "instantaneous cure" for almost anything, including "inflamed breasts, orchitis, boils, sprains, felons, periostitis, chronic ulcers, and such other local affections."

A 1907 ad in The Medical World promised remedy to lung problems.  (copyright expired)

Denver Chemical Manufacturing remained in the building until September 1919, when it sold it to R. U. Delapenha & Co., importers and representatives of the Seaboard Rice Company.   Their Comet Rice was advertised in newspapers nationwide.  A clever marketing ploy was the free rice recipe booklet available to readers who wrote in.

A typical ad in the Washington D. C. Evening Star offered a free recipe booklet.  April 9, 1923 (copyright expired)

An advertisement pretending to be a news article appeared in newspapers on March 1, 1927.  A seemingly serious headline in the Texas Breckenridge Daily American read "Debutantes Watch Diet."  The "article" began "The whirl of social affairs taxes body and mind alike.  But the younger set overcome fatigue by watching what they eat."  What seemed at first to be a human interest story quickly became an apparent ad.  The following paragraph opened "Because Comet Rice is so uniform in size, it cooks into a savory heap of light, white, fluffy flakes."

Among the directors of R. U Delapenha & Co. was Cecil E. Delapenha.   The success of the firm afford him and his wife, Dela, to live lavishly on the sixth floor of the upscale Century Apartments on Central Park West.   The couple had no children.

On July 17, 1933 Cecil left his apartment as usual.  Dela, who was 48 years old at the time, was suffering depression, termed by doctors as "melancholia" at the time.  Shortly after her husband had left, she turned on the six gas jets of the kitchen range, the seated herself on a chair to await her death.  She forgot, however, to extinguish a pilot light.

Gas filled the room and it is unknown if Dela passed out from the fumes.   When the gas exploded it blew out the apartment windows and those of the apartment directly above.  The New York Times reported "The force of the explosion had hurled her to the floor."

The blast alerted tenants and the superintendent, Frederick Moore, who entered the apartment with a passkey and extinguished the small fire that had resulted.  Dela was dead.

With the repeal of Prohibition, R. U. Delapenha & Co. added Myer's Rum to its offerings.  It went back to a tried-and-true marketing strategy for its new product.  An advertisement in Life magazine on November 30, 1942 noted "For new free Rum Recipe Book write R. U. Delapenha & Co."

The ad pictured two well dressed gentlemen in front of a roaring fire.  "What better way to spend an idle evening hour than with good companionship, a good fire and a cheering drink made with Myer's--the dark Jamaica Rum?"

In addition R. U. Delapenha & Co. manufactured its own product in Jersey City, described as "glazed pineapple and citron and crystallized ginger."

After three decades in the Laight Street building, R. U. Delapenha & Co. sold it in 1951 to Pasquale Gauriglio.   He operated his paper stock warehouse from here through the 1960s.  By then the Tribeca district was seeing evidence of change once again.  Discovered by artists, its lofts and stores were being converted to galleries, restaurants and living spaces.

By 1972 the lower portion of No. 57 had been converted to an off-off-Broadway theater, The Trust, run by dancer and choreographer William Dunas.   In May that year his "Our Lady of Late" was performed here.  Don McDonaugh of The New York Times called it "murky dance both in content and lighting."  The following year Robert Magginson & Associates performed here in "I Went With Him And She Came With Me."

As was the case with so many 19th century Tribeca loft buildings, No. 57 Laight Street was converted to "loft dwellings" in 1986 with one residence per floor.  Tucked away on the relatively quiet side street, the dignified structure is easily missed.

photographs by the author

The Port Warehouse Bldg - Nos. 54-58 Laight Street

In 1705 Queen Anne granted a massive tract of rural land on Manhattan's west side to Trinity Church.   Stretching approximately from Fulton Street to Christopher Street, it was originally called the Queen's Farm.  Following the Revolution it was known as the Church Farm.

One particularly ardent anti-Royalist during that conflict was Trinity vestryman William Laight.  A prominent merchant, he was a member of the Committee of 100 which, among other activities, sent a list of "American wrongs" to London on May 5, 1775.

When Trinity Church announced plans in 1803 for developing parts of the Church Farm slightly north of the expanding city, reaction was swift and negative.  The boggy, reed-filled area was overrun with mosquitoes and snakes.  It was known for decades as "where was skating in winter and hunting in summer."

Undeterred, the Church forged on, creating Manhattan's most exclusive residential neighborhood, St. John's Park, by 1810.  Trinity named one of the new roads Laight Street, in honor of William Laight.

Laight Street was soon lined with handsome brick-faced homes.   Christopher Lord, a manufacturer of medicine chests, lived at No. 54 Laight in the 1830s; and by 1846 the well-to-do George W. Prescott called it home.  Prescott's private stable was just down the block at No. 48 Laight Street.


But drastic change would come to the refined neighborhood two years after the Civil War.  Trinity Church sold the St. John's Park property to the Hudson River Railroad Company, which immediately laid plans for a freight terminal.   Wealthy homeowners abandoned their Federal-style mansions, which were quickly razed or converted for business.

Henry J. Meyer's ship chandler business had boomed during the Civil War.  He now used his fortune to get in on the rapid redevelopment of the freight terminal neighborhood.   In 1870 he hired George W. DaCunha to design a warehouse building to replace the old houses at Nos. 54, 56 and 58 Laight Street.  It would be just one of several such structures Meyer would erect in the immediate area.

Interestingly, for this project DaCunha doubled as the builder as well.  The completed five story structure was faced in red brick and took inspiration from the German form of Romanesque Revival known as Rundbogenstil.  There was no attempt at costly, decorative materials for the utilitarian building.  Instead, brick was used to create the handsome elements--elliptical arched drip moldings above the openings, a stepped corbel table below the cornice, and a blind roundel within the triangular pediment.

The warehouse had barely commenced operation when it was the victim of what a headline in The New York Times proclaimed an "Extraordinary Burglary."  Indeed, the heist committed on December 2, 1871 was the stuff of sensational crime novels.

Towards the end of November a young woman rented a room on the top floor of the tenement building next door, at No 60 Laight Street.  The newspaper explained that that building "adjoins and is fifteen feet higher than the bonded warehouse of Henry J. Meyer, Nos. 54, 56 and 58 Laight Street."

A few days later, on Saturday, four men were seen bringing trunks to her room.  But there was nothing out of the ordinary in that, nor in the fact that Monday morning "the room was vacated and the trunks carried away with a load of household furniture."

But when the warehouse was opened that Monday morning, it was immediately apparent that burglars had ransacked the place.  Investigation revealed that the criminals had entered by the roof scuttle, which had been forced open from inside the building.  The Times reported that "made it clear that some of the outlaws had managed to secrete themselves in the [ware]house before it was closed on Saturday, and had thus passed out the plunder to their comrades, and had then got out in the same way."

Police Captain Petty went to the room in the tenement.  Breaking open the door, he found "a folding ladder, a dark lantern [one with blinders that limited the spread of light to a specific area], a lot of burglar's tools, and the original paper wrappers of the silks."  (Those silks were 47 bolts of black and colored fabrics belonging to the massive H. B. Claflin & Co. wholesale firm on Worth Street.) 

The crooks got off with $14,000 worth of goods--in the neighborhood of $280,000 today.  Detectives were able to trace them to No. 211 West 13th Street and rushed in to make arrests.  But, wrote The Times, "the hope raised by this discovery was instantly destroyed by the further information that the goods had been removed from this house on Tuesday."

The trail then went cold.  "It was found that they had been taken away in a two-horse furniture truck painted red, the driver of which was a short, stout German who spoke English very imperfectly, and who was assisted in the loading by two colored men.  With this information the trace of the thieves was entirely lost."

The break-in and loss was a rare incident for Henry J. Meyer.   His business continued to flourish and he lived in style with his wife, Jennie, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.  In 1877, the year that he died, he still operated several storage warehouses including the Laight Street building.

Following Meyer's death, Nos. 54-58 Laight Street was taken over by Baker & Williams.  Among the largest bonded storage firms in the city, it too operated from several locations.  In the summer of 1897 George W. DaCunha's construction expertise was proved when a "fierce fire" broke out in the R. E. Dietz Company's factory next door.

That building, which stretched to the corner of Greenwich Street, was nearly destroyed.  Baker & Williams employees had jumped to action immediately when the fire was discovered.  The Times reported that "the shutters of all the windows in the warehouse were closed, the doors locked, and every precaution taken against a deluge from the hose."

When the blaze was extinguished, insurance inspector went through the warehouse, "but found everything intact.  Not a drop of water had reached any of the valuable dry goods stored in the building."

The Port Warehouse also operated multiple storage facilities.  By 1925 it had acquired No. 54-58 Laight Street.   Unlike Henry Meyer and Baker & Williams, which handled mostly dry goods, Port Warehouse had a wide variety of clients.

photo via trinitywallstreet.org (original source unknown)

On September 28, 1925 one of Port Warehouse's drivers, Henry Harrison, left the building for Brooklyn's massive Bush Terminal.  He was almost there when four men in an automobile forced his truck to the curb.

Newspapers reported "Pressing pistols against his body, two of the four men drove Harrison to Ebbets Field, where he was thrown out.  The other thieves made off with the truck before the police could be summoned."  The kidnapping and robbery took place "in the view of hundreds of dock workers."

Whether the crooks realized what they were stealing is unclear; but Harrison's truck was loaded with $30,000 worth of cigarettes.   The valuable, if surprising, booty would be valued at more than $400,000 today.

Before the rediscovery of Tribeca in the last quarter of the 20th century, Laight Street was industrial and gritty.  photo by Edmund Vincent Gillon from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Port Warehouse remained in the building at least through the 1970s.  In 1990 a renovation resulted in offices above the first floor; and in 2009 it was renovated again for use as a "telephone exchange."

The overhanging roof of the former freight platform was removed and the loading bays were filled in  (rather unsympathetically).  And a well-deserved cleaning unfortunately removed the old Port Warehouse signage.  Otherwise, George W. DaCunha's nearly 150-year old warehouse retains its handsome dignity.

photographs by the author