The Lost Samuel and Abigail Waterbury House - 34 East 30th Street

 

When this photograph was taken in 1912, buildings had crowded around the property.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Samuel Waterbury was born on January 25, 1795 and his wife, the former Abigail Williams, was born on March 21, 1806.  By the 1840s, when the couple lived in a vintage house on Beekman Street, Waterbury was a well-established cabinetmaker.  And their once-refined neighborhood was being rapidly transformed by commerce.

The couple were last listed on Beekman Street in 1848.  They had purchased land north of the established city on East 30th Street between Madison and Fourth Avenues.  (The latter would become Park Avenue South in 1959).

The Waterburys erected a 34-foot-wide frame house on the plot.  Two-and-a-half stories tall, its charming semi-rural design straddled the Greek Revival and Italianate styles.  The former was reflected in the sidelights and transom of the paneled door, in the Doric corner pilasters, and in the "end returns" of the gable eaves.  The Italianate style influenced the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows, the exceptionally tall second floor openings, and the wooden decorations atop the porch and roofline.

The house sat back on the property behind an especially tall iron fence and gate.  On the property was an apple orchard and decades later Abigail would tell a guest, "I could see from my windows the sun rise over one river and set over the other."

Samuel was one of four children born to Henry and Margaret Waterbury.  None of his siblings would marry and at some point his only brother, David H. (born 1807), moved into the East 30th Street house.

Samuel Waterbury retired in 1866.  By then, brownstone houses had begun appearing in the neighborhood.  As more and more crowded in around the Waterburys' house, it became a picturesque anachronism on the block.

David H. Waterbury died on January 14, 1873.  His funeral was held in the parlor on the 17th.  Five years later, on July 26, 1878, Samuel Waterbury died.  His funeral was held in the house three days later.

Abigail Williams Waterbury remained in the house, maintaining its pristine flowerbeds and tidy yard.  Gradually, the outbuildings and the orchard were sold off, until Abigail's carefully preserved slice of 1849 countryside was surrounded by modern structures.

On April 20, 1904, Abigail celebrated her 99th birthday by hosting "a dinner party to three of her friends," as reported by the New York Herald.  A week later, on May 29, 1904, the newspaper remarked:

A little white frame house, two stories high, with a pointed attic above them, a narrow piazza, a little stretch of ground in front and a white picket fence [sic] running between its grounds and the sidewalk is an odd thing to find in a great city like New York of to-day.

The article said that Abigail, "except for her servants and a woman companion, lives alone in her quaint abode, which has been her home for half a century."  The newspaper described Abigail as "a neighborhood celebrity" and "a fine looking woman."  She was particularly fond of "all dumb animals," said the article, which said she "often stopped on the street to pat a dog or cat when she was out walking."

The New York Herald went on to describe the house, saying in part:

Passersby can see right through the rooms of the first story.  The shades are drawn high and the old fashioned white lace curtains do not hide from view the masses of beautiful flowers standing in the drawing room, or the green parrot in a big cage before the window of the back parlor.  The flowers are famous in the neighborhood.  Relatives send them in from the country twice a week.

Abigail's birthday dinner would be her last.  On April 22, 1905, one month before her 100th birthday, she died in the house.  In reporting her death, the New York Herald reminded readers, "For over half a century she had lived in the little old fashioned frame house in East Thirtieth street, which with its prim flower beds in front had for many years been a curious landmark among the brick and brownstone houses which line the street on both sides and which had grown to be landmarks themselves."

Abigail's funeral in the drawing room on April 22, 1905 would be the last function in the house.  Seven months later, the Waterburys' furnishings were auctioned.  The announcement gives a hint of the couple's comfortable interiors: "Grandfather's clock, Colonial chairs, tables, old paintings, engravings, miniatures, arms, armor, curios, ivory carvings, draperies, genuine antiques."

For decades, developers and real estate operators had been waiting in the wings for the Waterbury property to become available.  On May 18, 1905, The Evening Post reported, "The most noteworthy [real estate news] was the sale by the Waterbury estate, of the frame thirty-four-foot dwelling at No. 34 East Thirtieth Street, only another evidence, of course, of the insatiable demand for property in the Park Avenue neighborhood."  

The purchase by George Rosenfeld initiated a series of turnovers.  He resold it to the New York Operating Company in April 1908, which sold it two years later.  On March 12, 1910, The New York Times reported, "The purchaser is a builder, who will erect a business structure on the site."

The quaint Waterbury house was demolished.  Its idyllic site was used, temporarily, by baseball teams.  On March 23, 1913, The New York Times remarked, "Pee Wee Park, that now famous baseball lot at 34 East Thirtieth Street, was invaded yesterday by a squad of militiamen from the Twelfth Regiment, looking for baseball action."

Teams would have to find a new venue in 1921.  That year, on May 19, The New York Times reported that George F. Pelham had filed plans for a nine-story office and store building.  That structure survives.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The Lost Eldridge Street Jail - 22 Eldrige Street

22 Eldridge Street is the three-story building, second from left.  Close inspection of the single unshuttered window reveals iron bars.  from D. T. Valentine's Manual, 1860 (copyright expired)

On December 9, 1856, the New-York Daily Tribune reminisced about Eldridge Street, saying it "was not many years ago the northern limit of the city, and whilom [i.e., formerly] a quarter where many of the ancient Knickerbockers had their residences, and where, in ancient days...houses were built upon solid foundations."  The article pointed out 22 Eldridge Street, "between Division and Walker now, or soon to be called Canal."  A wealthy citizen who erected that residence, said the journalist, "probably intended [that it ] should shelter him and his children, and his children's children, even unto the third and fourth generation."  He mulled:

How little he thought that the time would come when the mansion-house would be converted, as it was, into a public school-house, instead of a dwelling for his children!

The writer was recalling the Hart & Belden school, which occupied part of the handsome, Georgian-style mansion by 1822.  The proprietors leased the building from the city, which, strangely enough, reserved the upper portion for a watch-house.  (Watch-houses were used as bases for night watchmen and for temporarily holding prisoners.)  

The privy in the rear yard, intended for a single family when erected, was sorely overused at the time.  The Minutes of the Common Council on April 29, 1822 described "the yard attached to the Watch house [is] in a filthy & offensive State and having become highly offensive to its occupants."  A resolution was passed to install a cesspool on the property.

In 1824, the building was leased to Seely & Olmstead, who continued to oversee the school.  The Minutes of the Common Council on April 26 that year reported that Seely & Olmstead "beg leave to state that there are Some Repairs absolutely necessary to be done for the preservation of the Building."  The Council allocated $25 to $30 to make repairs to the "upper part of the Watch house."

The type of temporary incarcerations in the Watch-House was exemplified in a January 29, 1839 article in The Evening Post.   The coroner was called to examine "the body of a man named Edward Norton, who was on Sunday night found drunk in the street, and brought to the Watch House by a Watchman, and died in the course of the night.  Verdict--death from intemperance."  

The bizarre symbiotic school-and-watch-house arrangement came to an end in 1841.  On May 11, the Board of Assistant Aldermen approved a resolution for " altering the Old Watching in to a Debtor's Prison."

The first debtor's prison in New York, according to Philip Klein's 1920 book Prison Methods in New York State, was opened in 1699.  The irony of the concept was that anyone could have the person who owed him money incarcerated, and that incarceration made the prisoner's ability to earn money to repay his accuser impossible.  In 1856, the New-York Tribune would remark, "Imprisonment for debt, in any form, is looked upon by us as a relic of a barbarous age," and yet the Debtor's Prison went on.

According to the newspaper on December 9, 1856, the parlor and second floors held ten cells each, "six upon one side and four on the other--seven single and three double, and of course only those next the front and rear walls are lighted, except at second hand through the cell doors opening into the hall."  The second floor was reserved for "United States prisoners."  In the basement were the kitchen and accommodations for the jailor's family.  The top floor was a single, large room outfitted with cots and could hold 35 "poor debtors."

Among the first to be jailed here was Lawrence Connelly, a recent immigrant.  Under the Federal Militia Act of 1792, all able-bodied white male citizens from 18 to 45 were required to enroll in the state militia.  Connelly and his family occupied a rear room at 59 Cross Street.  The New-York Tribune reported on January 1, 1842, "A notice to train [i.e. enroll] was left for him, in a front room, but he, residing in a back apartment, never saw or heard of it."  Connelly was arrested for "the non-performance of Militia duty, though he is an alien," reported the article.

The enraged newspaper titled its article "Military Despotism" and said, "He is without a dollar, while his family are without the necessaries of life, and suffering from sickness."  Mrs. Connelly went to "the Colonel" who told her "her husband may be let off upon the payment of the jail expenses."  The $5 fee--equal to $200 in 2026--"is utterly beyond their means," said the New-York Tribune.  The newspaper pleaded, "Will someone who has an extra five dollar bill see that this poor man is liberated this morning?"

The "jail expenses" that the Connellys faced was yet another ironic element of the debtor's prison.  The jailer was given the discretion of fixing "the price of board" for the prisoners.  And unlike other civic institutions, which were governed by the city, the jailer was not salaried.  Instead "this is a fee-office," explained the New-York Daily Tribune.  The newspaper noted, "It is an office where the incumbent must be strongly tempted to peculate upon the prisoners."  (In 1856, there was a fee of $1.50 "for receiving and discharging a prisoner," and a weekly "boarding fee.")

Not all prisoners were debtors.  A young woman arrived in New York City from France in 1843.  The National Anti-Slavery Standard reported on September 21 that she "was betrayed by a fellow in this city, under promise of marriage."  The woman told her friends of "the outrageous means to which he had forced her to resort to conceal the crime."  [Translated to 21st century terms: he had forced her to abort the pregnancy.]  Because the story spread, her former lover sued her for slander and she was locked up in the Eldridge Street Prison.  

The Eldridge Street Prison quickly earned a gruesome reputation.  On December 17, 1845, The Evening Post described it as "that loathsome abode" where "inhumanity and rascality are practised upon the unfortunate."

Perhaps the first instance of slaves being held here came in 1847.  The slave ship Lembranca was seized and the slaves brought to the Eldridge Street prison for holding.  Although slavery had been outlawed in New York for years, New York City's sympathies were, for the most part, with the South and those industries (like cotton) that were so important to New York City's finances.  On August 12, 1847, the National Anti-Slavery Standard reported that Judge Edwards had remanded the custody of the slaves to the Lembranca's captain.  

In response to the abolitionists who feared for the slaves' fates, the captain, "generously consented to take $300 each for them, affirming that they would be worth $500 each in Brazil," reported the newspaper.  The abolitionists took matters in their own hands.  When the captain arrived on August 9 to retrieve the slaves, they were gone.  The National Anti-Slavery Standard reported, "On Sunday night they were safe in their cells when the keeper retired to rest.  In the morning they were not to be found, though the keys of the keeper remained where he had put them the night before, on his table."

An article in the February 1856 issue of The Prisoners' Friend described the conditions here.  It said "the Jail in Eldridge street is a place of suffering, and a standing monument of public injustice."  If the prisoners "behave well," they were allowed to walk around in the corridor between cells.  "If noisy, or disobedient, they are sometimes confined for days in the cells."  At the end of the corridor was a single water closet "and this too is the place for washing."  The article continued:

Thither male and female, white and black, without any screen of decency other than the closet door, are forced to repair, and in the gradual loss of delicacy, moral and physical, stone for the crime of debt.

Charles Carpentier committed what newspapers termed The Great French Railway Fraud in 1856.  A cashier of the North Railway Company, he and his accomplices, Eugene and Louis Grelet, embezzled $1 million--nearly 40 times that much today--and fled to the United States.  

The Grelet brothers were captured and imprisoned in the Eldridge Street Jail.  Eugene Grelet would never leave.  On May 22, 1857, the New-York Daily Tribune reported, "A fortnight since his health began to decline, and the disease soon took the form of an inflammation of the brain."  Eugene Grelet died in the jail on May 21.  Many wondered what actually precipitated the young man's death.

On July 23, 1860, the slave brig William R. Kirby was captured by a United States steamer.  The crew had fled, "leaving their breakfast uneaten upon the table," said The New York Times.  The William R. Kirby arrived in New York City on August 13.  In searching the vessel, three young boys were discovered hiding in the hold.  About 12 or 14 years old, they were naked other than "trinkets of brass and copper" hung around their necks.  The boys were taken to the Eldridge Street Prison "where they will be comfortably quartered until they are wanted as witnesses against the vessel," said the article.  (How they were expected to testify is unclear, since, of course, the African youths did not speak English.)

After visiting the Eldridge Street Jail in the fall of 1860 and seeing the boys fed, a writer wrote to the editor of the New-York Dispatch.  His racist recount said in part:

If you will call about the time rations are served...you will see them served to the prisoners, worse than any decent man would feed his hogs.  You will see wild African boys from the coast of Africa, captured from a slaver, rushing foremost for their supplies, half naked, and with unwashed hands, howling their gibberish, while respectable gentlemen, who are retained here merely on ex parte and malicious affidavits, charging debt and fraud, but totally unsupported, are compelled to stand back until these semi-savages are served.

In 1862, the new Ludlow Street Jail opened and replaced the Eldridge Street facility.  No. 22 Eldridge Street was leased to John Connelly in March 1864 "at $490 per annum," according to the New-York Tribune.  (The annual rent would translate to about $10,400 in 2026 terms.)   He converted it to a rooming house.

The city sold the property to Connelly in April 1867 for $9,900.  In reporting the sale, the New-York Tribune described it as being "formerly the 'Eldridge-st. Jail.'  The building is of brick, about 25 feet front and 55 feet in depth.  It is rather old and somewhat dilapidated."

Connelly demolished the vintage structure later that year.  It was replaced by a four-story Italianate-style brick building that survives.

photograph by Secret Egypt

The Lost Cullman Bros. Building - 161 Front Street

 

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Jacob and Joseph F. Cullman learned the tobacco trading business from their father, Ferdinand Kullman, who had been a tobacco merchant in Germany.  Now in America and with a newly-spelled surname, the brothers founded Cullman Bros. in 1892.  The company initially purchased American and foreign grown tobacco for resale to cigar manufacturers.  The enterprising brothers would continually grow their business--adding and changing their plan, acquiring other firms, and diversifying.  By the early 20th century, Cullman Bros. made its own cigars, and starting in 1906 manufactured cigars for an auxiliary firm, United Cigar Manufacturers Company.  (In 1917 United Cigar Manufacturers Company was renamed General Cigar Co., Inc.)

Joseph F. Cullman additionally dealt in Lower Manhattan real estate by the early 1910s.  On December 25, 1915, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported, "Mr. Cullman recently sold eight buildings, comprising the block front on Burling slip from Pearl to Water street."  The article said he had also just purchased five loft buildings in the same neighborhood to be "remodeled and reconstructed" for rental.  Importantly, it said that Joseph Cullman had recently bought "161-163 Front street, corner of Fletcher, which is about to be improved with a marble building for the occupancy of Cullman Bros."

Cullman had spent $48,000 for the 2,000-square-foot corner property.  A few weeks before the Record & Guide's article, on November 6, the New York Herald reported, "Mr. Cullman will construct for Cullman Bros. a two or three story marble building to be used exclusive for their business."

By the time architect Aymar Embury II filed plans in March 1916, the project had been scaled back.  The plans called for a one-story office building which would cost $20,000 to construct, or about $605,000 in 2026 terms.

The soaring ceiling height of the single-story building made it the equivalent of a two-story structure.  Embury's neo-Federal design smacked more of a bank than office building.  Sitting on a stone water table, the red brick facade was trimmed in marble.  Elegant arched windows were separated by shallow pilasters.  They supported a reeded entablature decorated with urns and blind rondels.  A brick parapet, interrupted by marble balustrades on the Front Street side, sat atop the cornice.

image via the NYC Department of Records and Information Services.

By the World War I years, Joseph Cullman's sons, Howard and Joseph Jr., were highly involved in the business.  They, too, were highly entrepreneurial and civic minded.  On June 7, 1918, for instance, The New York Times reported that Joseph Jr. was organizing the 306th Infantry Auxiliary, and on July 23, 1919, the Tobacco Record announced:

Joseph S. Cullman Jr. of the leaf tobacco firm of Cullman Bros., 161 Front street, is the directing force behind the big drive to win the cooperation of the many business interests in the metropolitan district in making the biggest kind of a success of the Actors' Memorial campaign.

The article noted that Cullman had been "active in a number of drives during the war."

The interior of the Cullman Bros. building was as bank-like inside as out.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1921, Joseph Jr. and Howard spearheaded a movement to clean up the downtown riverfront area.  On June 15, 1921, the New York Herald reported, "A conference to consider the abatement of cinder showers from stacks of a steam manufacturing plant near Burling Slip will be held to-morrow at the offices of Cullman Brothers, 161 Front Street."  That meeting resulted in the Cinder Committee of the Downtown League, headquartered in the Cullman Bros. building.  Three years later, the fight was ongoing.  On January 17, 1924, The New York Times reported that the committee "went on record 'condemning the company's plant.'"  (The offensive plant was operated by the New York Steam Company.)

In the meantime, Joseph Cullman Sr. remained the head of the firm.  He expanded by purchasing land in Connecticut for growing wrapper tobacco.  He and Howard were highly involved in Mount Sinai Hospital.  Joseph sat on its board and was chairman of the committee on medical instruction, and Howard was its president beginning in the early 1920s.

Joseph Cullman Sr. died on August 1, 1938 at the age of 83.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked, "Until two months ago, he had been going regularly to his office at 161 Front Street, home of the wholesale tobacco firm of Cullman Brothers, of which he was board chairman and former president."  Joseph Jr. was president and Howard vice-president of the firm.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Ten years earlier, Joseph and Howard organized the Tobacco & Allied Stocks, Inc. a tobacco trust.  By 1938 it controlled Benson & Hedges and in 1954, Joseph and his son, Joseph III, became part of Philip Morris's executive staff through a $22.4 million deal.  Another son, Edgar Meyer Cullman, joined Cullman Bros. in the 1940s.  He was in charge of operating the 600-acre Connecticut tobacco farm and sales.

Cullman Bros. and General Cigar Co., Inc. continued to grow and change.  In 1944, General Cigar introduced the Robert Burns Cigarillo--a panatela cigar that closely resembled a cigarette.

In 1961, Edgar Meyer Cullman purchased General Cigar.  At the time, it was the largest maker of mass produced cigars in the country.  By 1966, the firm had relocated to Midtown.  (Cullman Bros. would eventually become Culbro.)

Aymar Embury II's elegant one-story office building did not survive.  It was razed and the plot was used for a parking lot "for 21 passenger motor vehicles," as described by the Department of Buildings.  In 2015, the 31-story Fairfield Inn & Suites building opened on the site.

image via tripadvisor.com

The Lost Alphonse L. Fachere House - 170 West 99th Street

 

The house was in pristine condition in 1932.  The door between it and the flat building to the right was once called a horsewalk--an access to the rear yard.  photograph by Charles Von Urban from the collection of the New York Public Library

In the first years of the 19th century, John Clendening's summer estate stretched from what would become 99th Street to 105th Street, and from Central Park West to Broadway.  On March 20, 1845, the estate was sold at auction at the Merchants' Exchange.  The New York Times would muse decades later, "Of course, in 1845 there was no Central Park.  It was eight years later before the city acquired the great acreage in the central part of Manhattan Island."  Nevertheless, said the newspaper in 1911, "one cannot help but marvel at the lack of confidence displayed by the moneyed men of the city in their apparent lack of confidence in the future" of the West Side.  

Some of the newly plotted lots were sold for only $9.50 each (about $417 in 2026 terms).  The Commercial Advertiser reported on March 20, 1845 that the plot that would later be numbered 107 West 99th Street had sold for $13.  

The Georgian-style Clendening mansion sat between today's Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, and 102nd and 105th Streets.  D. T. Valentine's Manual, 1863 (copyright expired)

It would not be until the end of the Civil War that development in the district slowly started.  Around 1875, a three-story-and-basement frame house was constructed at what would be given the address of 170 West 99th Street.  Nearly a generation before the neighborhood's blocks would be lined with rows of high-stooped houses, this one was free-standing.  Its full-width porch above a short stoop reflected the personality of the still-rural district.  The porch columns, the corbelled cornice and the molded lintels were influenced by the Italianate style.  The third floor, however, took the form of a slate-shingled mansard pierced by two peaked dormers, a trademark of the fashionable French Second Empire style.

At the time, Alphonse Louis Fachere lived far to the south on West 35th Street.  Born in 1824, he was the owner of the marble business, A. L. Fachere & Co.  The firm had two locations--at 1319 Broadway and 237 West 32nd Street.  Around 1890, Fachere retired and moved into the picturesque wooden house.

Fachere and his wife had at least three children.  One adult child lived here, while two daughters were married.  One of them had married Thomas McNeill in 1890.  The New York World said McNeill, "is a coachman because he loves horses."  The young man was also fond of horse racing.  On September 8, 1893, the 30-year-old Thomas McNeil appeared in Harlem Police Court.  "Three complainants were ready to appear against him for stealing a coupe," reported The New York World.  

McNeill was the coachman of Moses R. Crow.  He sold Crow's coupe (a four-wheeled carriage) to Mooney & Connors, liverymen, for $268.  "Then he got the coupe back on the promise to return the money and sold it again to a physician," said the article.  Now Moses Crow, Mooney & Connors, and the physician all filed complaints against him.

McNeill sent a message to 170 West 99th Street for bail, but, as The World explained, "McNeill isn't admired by his wife's family."  McNeill told a reporter, "My father-in-law is a millionaire, but he is down on me."

And, indeed, when Fouchere was asked to comment, he told a reporter from The World, "McNeill is no good and I have had trouble enough with him.  He can go to the devil for all I care."

Fouchere's other son-in-law, A. A. Brunner disclosed, "He has helped McNeill, but grew tired of giving him money to gamble on the races...He has had every opportunity, but has thrown away his prospects."  Thomas McNeill was jailed for the theft.

The Foucheres had at least two servants--a cook and a maid.  The family was explicit in their advertisement seeking a new maid in November 1896:  "Wanted--A woman for general housework, between 35 and 50 years; three in family; French, Swiss or German.  Apply 170 West 99th st."

Alphonse Louis Fauchere died on July 7, 1897.  His funeral was held in the parlor of 170 West 99th Street two days later.

By the first years of the 20th century, John L. Garvey and his wife, the former Mary R. Bishop, occupied the house.  Garvey was a real estate operator.  He and Mary had at least one daughter, Regine.

Garvey's name appeared in newspapers routinely as he bought and sold real estate.  It appeared for a much different reason on October 1, 1912 when he sought to sell his pool table in The Evening Telegram.  "5x9 P & B billiard table, all complete, $35."

Mary Bishop Garvey died on Christmas Day, 1924.  Her funeral was held in the Church of the Holy Name on Amsterdam Avenue and 96th Street.  

Garvey leased 170 West 99th Street to Lorenzo Daniels and his wife, the former Elinor Louise Adee.  By now, the West 99th Street block was fully developed and the stand-alone wooden house was a charming anachronism.

Lorenzo Daniels was born in Hartford, Connecticut on March 21, 1862.  Elinor was his second wife.  His first, Edith Rexford, died on December 12, 1919, the year that Lorenzo retired.  He and Elinor were married in 1921.

Daniels had been one of the earliest members of the New York Produce Exchange, a co-owner of the Exchange Building, and a trustee of the Dry Dock Savings Institution.  The New York Times said, "Early in his career he moved to New York and entered the exporting and importing business...He developed the scope of his operations until they extended to nearly every quarter of the globe."

Elinor Daniels (who was known familiarly as Ellen), was highly involved in charity work and, according to The New York Times, was "one of the leading Eastern executives of the Red Cross.

Only months after the couple moved into 170 West 99th Street, Elinor Adee Daniels died on December 17, 1925.  Five days later, The New York Times reported on her funeral in St. Bartholomew's Church.  "Several hundred persons, including 100 representatives of the American Red Cross" were there, as well as delegations "from the many charitable organizations with which Mrs. Daniels had been associated."

Lorenzo Daniels moved to 853 Seventh Avenue, where he suffered a fatal stroke on October 14, 1930.  In the meantime, Regine Garvey had returned to 170 West 99th Street.  She was living here in December 1929 when she became a director of the newly incorporated Cloverleaf Creamery, Inc.  As early as 1937, however, the house was vacant and boarded up.

The house was boarded up in 1937.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Within a decade, the wooden relic was gone.  A short fieldstone wall and chain link fence was erected in front of the vacant lot.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 2007 the lot at 170 West 99th Street and all the properties between 97th to 100th Streets and Columbus to Amsterdam Avenues became the site of the Columbus Square development project.

The Lost Daly's Restaurant Building - 20 East 42nd Street

 

The Brickbuilder, October 10, 1916 (copyright expired)

Born in Ireland in 1865, Bernard Daly arrived in New York City in 1883.  Although he never dabbled in politics, according to The New York Times years later, he "was a personal friend of many Tammany Hall figures."  Among those were Tammany bosses John F. Curry and Charles F. Murphy.

In 1885, Daly opened a saloon on Eleventh Avenue and West 42nd Street.  He lost the business in bankruptcy in 1908, creating a problem for Judge Hough.  He appointed a businessman who was not affiliated with the courts to "carry on the business," according to the New York Herald.  The article explained, "A lawyer remarked that Uncle Sam running a liquor saloon would not please the Prohibitionists."

Bernard Daly began anew, opening a restaurant and bar in a renovated three-story townhouse at 20 East 42nd Street, just east of Fifth Avenue.  Daly subleased the space from the New York Real Estate and Security Company, which was renting the property from Caroline Cochard, who lived in Paris.  Spaces in the upper portion of the building were occupied by offices, at least two of which held well known architects--Emery Roth and Oscar Lowinson.

In 1913, the New York Real Estate and Security Company failed.  The New York Times reported on January 17, 1914, "Agnes Daly, wife of Bernard Daly, the tenant of the property," had leased the old building.  The New York Herald noted that the lease would extend for 19 years.

The Dalys hired architect John Philip Voelker to remodel the vintage house into a romantic, five-story-and-attic building.  The Daly Restaurant would occupy the lower three floors of the Tyrolean-style structure, and the upper portion would hold apartments.  Voelker was assisted by architect Oscar Lowinson.  (The latter's fees were covered by Caroline Cochard.)  Lowinson was charged with designing the striking glass-and-iron marquee, an extension in the rear, and (less glamorous) the plumbing.

Voelker gave the side piers a striated effect by alternating red brick and stone.  A long arcade fronted the second floor and three grouped windows dominated the third.  The upper floors sat back, allowing for a crenellated balcony at the fourth floor.  The step-gabled attic was decorated with half-timbering.

Oscar Lowinson worked "in co-operation with Jack Abrams & Bro., Inc.," on the up-to-date plumbing, according to The Plumbers' Trade Journal, Steam and Hot Water Fitters' Review on September 15, 1915.  The journal called it "a very fine installation of modern plumbing work," and described, "The changes and alterations consist of providing extensive kitchen plumbing equipment, a six-station bar 67 feet long, two commodious toilet rooms, one in the basement for men and one on [the] second floor for women."

Unlike his previous saloon, Daly's was a proper restaurant and barroom.  The New York Times would recall in 1933 that it "was noted for many specialties both in its cuisine and at its bar, one of the longest in the city at that time."

The price for the above meal would translate to about $38 in 2026.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Shortly after the restaurant opened, tragedy occurred.   Myles Carroll, who was employed by the Knickerbocker Ice Company, drove his ice wagon to the restaurant on September 22, 1914.  Court papers documented that he was delivering ice in the cellar when "the ice tongs slipped and a 300-lb cake of ice fell upon him, striking him in the abdomen."  The injured man died in a hospital six days later.

Like the modern plumbing, Bernard Daly kept up with technological advances.  Early in 1916, he converted the kitchen from coal ranges to gas.  In its April 1916 issue, Gas Logic published two photographs, explaining:

It was an over-night change of kitchen.  The chef and his three assistants left Daly's Restaurant, No. 20 East Forty-second Street, after the coal fires had been "drawn."  The next morning the chef was prepared to cook the meals of 500 customers on Gas Ranges.

Kitchen workers among the coal-fired equipment. Gas Logic, April 1916 (copyright expired)

The kitchen with its gas-fed equipment.  Gas Logic April 1916 (copyright expired)

Although the article's photographs did not reveal dramatic transformations, it noted, "The heat in the Daly Restaurant kitchen had always been excessive...That kitchen is cool and comfortable today."

Bernard Daly's first trouble with authorities came in 1918.  To conserve oil and coal for the war effort, the Federal Government instituted "Lightless Sundays and Thursdays."  On those nights, no exterior lighting other that street lights was allowed.  Storefronts and displays were ordered shut off.

The electric sign outside Daly's Restaurant burned brightly on Thursday night, March 29, 1918.  The infraction cost Daly dearly.  The following day, The Evening World reported, "Ten firms...had their electric current turned off to-day by order of Deputy Fuel Administrator Edwin O. Norma. for violation of the 'lightless Thursday' rule last night."  Among those businesses was Daly's Restaurant.  The article said that it was Daly's second offense, and he received a warning the first time.

Another war restriction would get Daly into hot water.  Eight months later, in November 1918, the Government passed the Wartime Prohibition Act, banning the sale of intoxicating liquors.  At 7:00 on September 17, 1919, according to The New York Times, "dinner was being served and the restaurant upstairs and the barroom was crowded."  About 50 patrons were eating in the dining room.  The article added that the cabaret and dancing room on the second floor "was well filled."  Suddenly Federal agents entered and "quietly walked to the end of the bar and told the man behind the bar there that he was under arrest."

The agents spread throughout the premises.  The New York Times said, "Those in the barroom were startled when a file of some half a dozen men, each displaying a gilt badge, started down the bar, moving aside the bartenders and gathering up the stock.  Flasks, demijohns, and bottles were passed back to the end of the counter."  In all, four of Daly's employees were arrested.  The New York Hotel Record added that the agents, "took with them to the Federal Building about four gallons of gin, whisky, brandy, and sherry."

Disgusted, Bernard Daly sold his business and his lease.  The New York Times later reminisced, "Persons in many walks of life frequented Daly's Restaurant and Grill.  Society folk, politicians, stage celebrities, authors and commuters mingled there.  For the last of these a late afternoon drink or two of ale often meant running for a Grand Central train."

(A calmer Daly would soon have seller's regret.  "Not long afterward, however, he opened another Daly's Restaurant and Grill at 17 East Fifty-ninth Street," said The New York Times.)

The ground floor of 20 East 42nd Street became a C. & L. Luncheonette, and the second floor was leased in February 1920 to Irving Chen and Chin Goon, "who will occupy the premises with a first-class Chinese-American restaurant," reported The New York Times.

The restaurants' tenancies would be short-lived.  On December 10, 1922, The New York Times remarked on the proposed "erection of the 20 East Forty-second Street Building" on the site as part of the "peak of the building movement in the Terminal zone."  

The replacement building.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Daly's Restaurant Building was demolished to be replaced by a six-story structure designed by Dennison & Hirons, completed in 1924.  That structure survives.

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for prompting this post

The Lost Scotch Presbyterian Church - 360 Central Park West

 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On July 23, 1892, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the Scotch Presbyterian Church "will shortly commence the erection of a handsome church edifice...on the southwest corner of Central Park West and 96th street."  Simultaneously, said the article, a "lecture room" would be constructed on the north side of 95th Street, just west of Central Park West.  "The church will cost $150,000 and the lecture room $50,000," it said.  The total figure would translate to about $7.3 million in 2026.

The Scotch Presbyterian Church originated following a schism within the First Presbyterian Church in 1756.  After worshipping in several locations, the congregation erected a Sicilian Gothic-style church at 53 West 14th Street in 1852.  Now (despite Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst saying that the trustees "exhibited cowardice" by abandoning the increasingly commercial West 14th Street), the trustees planned another move.

William H. Hume & Son was commissioned to design what The New York Times promised would be "an imposing Romanesque pile."  Construction on both buildings began in 1892 and by late summer of 1893 the West 95th Street structure was completed.  

The West 95th Street building, like the church, was Romanesque in style.  New-York Tribune, May 31, 1894 (copyright expired)

On September 18, the New-York Tribune reported that the "handsome new Sunday-school room of the Scotch Presbyterian Church...was formally opened yesterday afternoon."  The article noted, "On October 1 the church congregation will begin to worship in the Sunday-school room, which it will use till the completion of its new church...in Ninth-sixth-st., behind the Sunday-school."

On March 31, 1894, The New York Times reported on the cornerstone laying ceremony.  "W. H. Hume, the architect of the church building, spoke briefly, congratulating the officers of the church on the successful beginning of the work."  The newspaper described Hume's plans:

The foundation is of bluestone and the rest of the structure will be of Indiana limestone.  The iron-trussed roof will be covered with Spanish tiles.  The main entrance, on Ninety-sixth Street, will be under three romanesque [sic] arches, above which there is to be a large rose window.  At the northeast corner will be a high square tower.

Nine months later, the structure neared completion.  On December 30, 1894, The New York Times remarked, "The new building of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, Ninety-sixth Street and Central Park West, attracts and rewards the visitor by its solid, impressive architecture and the display of art in the adornments."  The artistic "adornments" included the Scotch thistle motif, which appeared "from the cornerstone to the cornice, over the organ, in the pew ends, and elsewhere."

The article vividly described the 52 stained-glass windows, executed by William Gibson's Sons.  In the center of the "great wheel window over the main entrance," said the article, was "an open Bible with the text, 'Thy word is truth.'"  It was surrounded by seven small round windows.

Completed in 1895, William H. Hume & Son had, indeed, created an "imposing Romanesque pile."  Turning its shoulder to Central Park West, the building faced West 96th Street.  Above a wide set of stone stairs, three arched entrances sat below the complex rose window within a yawning arch.  On the western side of the peaked roof was a romantic turret with a conical cap.  On the eastern side, a formidable bell tower rose high above Central Park West, terminating in a pyramidal cap.

Among the first social functions held by the church was a fund-raising event.  On September 22, 1895, the New-York Tribune said it "has hit upon a novel scheme to raise funds."  Congregants received "the oddest invitation they ever received."  The cards, "printed on coarse wrapping paper of the cheapest quality," invited them to a "Povertie Partie."  Written in Shakespearean-style prose like, "Ye women must wear ye cotton gowne and apron or equally befitting apparel," the invitations explained that the party was inspired by the "hard times which do now prevail."  A list of fines, ranging from 1 to 25 cents, would be levied on guests who violated the dress code, like wearing a scarfpin or silk dress.

Two years later, the rector, David G. Wylie, and his family moved into the new "manse" next door to the church on West 96th Street.  It was designed by Jardine, Kent & Jardine.

A sliver of the new rectory can be glimpsed at the right.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Scotch Presbyterian Church, deeply rooted in the British Isles, was the scene of two mourning services for world leaders in 1901.  In his sermon on January 27, Reverend Wylie memorialized Queen Victoria and pointed out the late monarch's viewpoint on women.  He said in part, "she was interested in everything which tended to elevate woman.  She was a queen in her home, and believed that home was pre-eminently woman's real sphere, where she should shine as a queen."

Eight months later, on September 16, The New York Times reported on Wylie's sermon following the assassination of President William McKinley.  He said that the name of the fallen President would "be closely associated with those of Washington and Lincoln--an immortal triumvirate."

The Central Park West elevation.  Streetcar tracks run down the middle of the stone-paved avenue.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Earlier that year, on July 28, the decorum of Sunday service was shattered.  During Reverend Wylie's sermon, a woman suddenly stood up.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Tearing her collar from around her neck, she placed it around her head and exclaimed: 'I am going to be married to Mr. Rockwell.'"

Wylie stopped speaking, the congregants turned to face the disturbance, and an usher rushed over to the woman.  The New-York Tribune described her as "tall, black haired and neatly attired in a white waist and a black skirt."  When the usher attempted to restrain her, she "fought desperately, and succeeded in tearing the lining entirely out of the man's coat."  She was finally carried to the vestry room where she continued to attempt to "get at the usher, especially after the unfortunate man, in his efforts to quiet the woman, told her that he was Mr. Rockwell."

An ambulance took Pearl Rockwell to the Harlem Hospital.  She was later transferred to Bellevue Hospital and placed in the "insane pavilion."  There it was learned that the 40-year-old and her husband were estranged.  "It is thought that grief over the separation unbalanced her mind," explained the New-York Tribune.

Rev. Dr. David G. Wylie, New-York Tribune, September 17, 1904 (copyright expired)

Reverend Wylie, like other pastors throughout the city, was highly opinionated and announced his views from the pulpit.  On July 3, 1904, for instance, he laid out the evils that threatened the United States.  He said in part:

One of our National evils is Mormonism.  Another is divorce.  The next menace is that of the saloon.  Corporate greed offers a menace not to be forgotten...There ought to be a greater regard for human life in this country than there is at present.  Our street railways are a source of danger because of the gross carelessness often exhibited.  The automobile threatens the lives of children, women, and old people.

In 1907 the Scotch Presbyterian Church merged with the First Reformed Presbyterian Church.  That congregation moved into the West 96th Street edifice and on March 16, the New York Herald confirmed that the consolidated congregations would operate "under the name of the Scotch Presbyterian Church."

David G. Wylie had married Jennie McWilliam in 1884.  The couple had four sons, Howard M., David R., John McWilliam, and Robert Sterling, and one daughter, Jennie D.  The family found themselves in the national spotlight when John went missing.

On April 26, John Wylie, who was 15 at the time, and his best friend, 16-year-old Buster Gutelius, sold their bicycles and took the $25 they obtained to buy train tickets to Port Jervis, New York.  The duo later explained that they "were in search of some needed outdoor recreation."

When the boys failed to come home from school that Friday afternoon, their parents had reported them missing.   By Tuesday the New York newspapers reached the Mill Rift Post Office near the Pennsylvania border.  The boys, who had established a camp within a cave, purchased an axe, some eggs, and other rations, from the general store that shared space with the post office.  

When Wylie and Gutelius returned, Postmaster Maloney compared their faces with the photographs.  Rather than confronting them and risking scaring them away, he quietly mailed off a letter to Rev. David G. Wylie.  On the morning of May 3, Dr. Wylie and another son arrived at the post office while the Gutelius family waited nervously on Central Park West for word.

Maloney sent a neighbor, Samuel Wilson, to the mountain cave with word that the postmaster needed to see him.  Leaving Buster cooking bacon and flapjacks, John Wylie rushed to town.  When he entered Maloney’s store, he was confronted with his father and brother.  The quixotic adventure was over.

The New York Times wrote, “Dr. Wylie was much impressed by the natural habitation, and was delighted to find that the boys had been living in a comfortable manner.  However, they had but $2 left.”

The following morning the New-York Tribune ran a headline reading “Cave Boys Come Home.”  The newspaper advised “The erstwhile cave men, or cave boys, did not willingly leave their subterranean retreat in a mountainside near Millville, Penn., but they came back at the earnest persuasion of Dr. Wylie.”

Reverend David G. Wiley would suffer unspeakable tragedy  in 1910.  On October 8, he conducted the funeral of John McWilliam Wylie, whose adventure had captured America's attention three years earlier.  The New York Times remarked, "members of the [United Boy's Brigade of America], his classmates in public, high, and Sunday schools will be present."

Jennie McWilliam Wylie fell sick upon his son's death.  Less than a month later, on November 4, she died.  The New-York Tribune said that it was thought that the loss of her son had "hastened Mrs. Wylie's death."

After occupying the pulpit of the Scotch Presbyterian Church for 23 years, on February 23, 1914, The New York Times reported that Wylie had resigned to take the position of Secretary of the Board of Church Erection of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  (On October 1 that year, the newspaper reported on his engagement to Martha Richter Thomas.)

The Reverend Dr. Robert Watson was installed as the new pastor on January 10, 1915.  Two years later, the congregation's name was changed to the Second Presbyterian Church.

In the post-World War I years, congregations nation-wide began embracing a new concept: the skyscraper church.  Parishes replaced their church edifices with office or apartment buildings that incorporated worship space within the lower floors.  On January 17, 1928, The New York Times reported that the Second Presbyterian Church would lease its property "to the Vinross Realties Company, Inc."  The article explained that the developer would replace the church with "a fifteen-story apartment building, which will house and support the church and its various activities."

Demolition of the 33-year-old church structure began in 1928.  It was replaced by 360 Central Park West, designed by Rosario Candela.

image via streeteasy.com