The Lost 7th Precinct Station House - 247 Madison Street

from the collection of the New York Public Library

On August 2, 1860, the New-York Daily Tribune reported, "A protest was received from various citizens in the Seventh Ward against the purchase by the city of the lots at Nos. 245 and 247 Madison street, for a new Station House in that Ward."  The citizens were not opposed to a new police station in their neighborhood, they were outraged by the cost.  The article said, "the original owner of the property was willing to take $9,000 for the property, but the [city offered] $15,000 for it."  Despite the grievances, the following day the Board of Alderman passed a resolution "to secure the premises Nos. 245 and 247 Madison street...at a price not exceeding $15,000."

The police department's architect produced a stylish Italianate-style station house.  The fully arched openings were, most likely, ornamented with molded lintels or architraves.  Dimension was achieved by slightly projecting the central three-bay wide section.  A corbelled cast metal cornice with a triangular pediment completed the design.  (A separate building in the rear yard housed the holding cells for prisoners.)

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Shortly after ground was broken for the 7th Precinct Station house, the first shot of the Civil War was fired.  The building was completed and fully staffed when one of the darkest periods in New York City history took place--the Draft Riots.  A revolt over the nation's first attempt at a military draft began with a lottery on July 11, 1863.  The first 1,200 names drawn came overwhelmingly from the city's poor and immigrant population.  Wealthy families had bought exemptions to exclude their sons.

At around 6:30 on the morning of July 13, 1863, riots erupted.  The resulting three-day reign of terror and carnage was unlike anything seen in the country before.  Innocent people were murdered, and draft offices, newspaper buildings, and the homes and neighborhoods of the city’s black population were burned.  The 7th Precinct officers were deployed to "sharp fighting," as described by The New York Times, throughout the district.  The newspaper said that on that first day, the officers staged an "attack upon and severe usage of the rioters at Broadway and Amity-street [later Third Street]."  

On the second day, Henry F. O'Brien, the black colonel of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, was spotted on Second Avenue.  He was surrounded by a vicious gang and for more than an hour he was pummeled with rocks and kicked.  He was then carried to a house where he was tortured to death and his body butchered beyond recognition.  Civilians who attempted to intervene were attacked by the mob.

The New York Times reported that Captain Bennett and men of the 7th Precinct were "detailed, with a company of military, to visit Thirty-fourth-street, where Col. O'Brien was so horribly murdered, to recover the body."  

In recapping the mayhem, on August 9, 1863 The New York Times remarked, "The officers and men of this Precinct saw considerable service during the week, and sustained the good repute hitherto attached to them."

In the summer of 1870, three 7th Precinct beat officers--Wild, Shalvey and Jarboe--revealed their sharp focus and concentration.  A year earlier, in April 1869, John Kelly, "alias John Wilson, alias 'Paddy Barry,'" according to The Evening Post, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in Sing Sing prison.  He escaped six months later.  Kelly managed to blend into the Bowery surroundings for nearly a year.  Then, at around 3:00 on the morning of August 24, 1870, the three officers nabbed him.  The Evening Post reported, "He will be returned to his old quarters to-day."

In 1872, according to the Sunday Mercury, the staff of the 7th Precinct consisted of one captain, four sergeants, 60 patrolmen, and two doormen.  (A "doorman" was the officer who manned the desk just within the front door to address questions and complaints of civilians who walked in.)  

The following year, the country was plunged into a debilitating financial depression--the Panic of 1873.  It would bring dire consequences to the already impoverished residents of the 7th Precinct.  In reporting on the "destitution" that was spreading across the city, on February 9, 1874, the New York Herald quoted Sergeant Oates.  "He thought there ought to be provision made for the wretched poor, fallen from higher estates."  

While the reporter was there, he looked around.  "Their quarters seemed well ventilated, and, not to be too complimentary, considerably the least disgusting of any of those visited."

Members of the 7th Precinct dealt with gangs and "rowdies."  On July 27, 1875, Officer Thomas F. Regan came upon a group of 15 men fighting at the corner of Madison and Scammell Streets.  Rather than call for assistance, he attempted to break up the melee single-handedly.  The mob immediately turned their focus onto the policeman.  The New-York Tribune reported, "he was knocked down, kicked, and left lying insensible on the sidewalk."  He was discovered and taken to the police station.  Regan's injuries were significant and the newspaper said "he was found to be unfit for police duty for some time."

A heart-warming incident took place here in the fall of 1896.  On October 10, a "shabbily dressed man about thirty years old," as described by The New York Times, was found prostrated in the station house doorway.  The man, Andrew Wyzandt, was deemed to be intoxicated and was locked up.

The next morning Detective Mooney escorted him to the Essex Market Police Court.  Wyzandt walked "feebly" and "stopped at garbage barrels along the walk and searched for crusts and apple cores.  When he found any he put them furtively in his pockets," reported The New York Times.

"Look here," Mooney asked, "are you really hungry?"

"I am starved."

Mooney made a detour in their route to the courthouse.  The article said that he "took him into a coffee saloon and ordered for him some chops, potatoes, rolls, and coffee."  Wyzandt merely stared at the plates when they were brought.  The New York Times said, "Losing patience, the detective held a roll under his guest's nose.  The result was magical.  Wyzandt ate the meal furiously."

Less charitably treated by a different precinct was Samuel Levi, who lived at 145 East Broadway.  On June 13, 1897, he rode his bicycle to the Queens County Park, where he fell and broke his leg.  He was taken to the nearest police station but, as reported by The Sun, "they didn't want him, nor did the hospital near by."  Finally, he was transported to the 7th Precinct Station House, arriving at about 7:30 that evening.  The article said that Sergeant MacSweeny sent for an ambulance and Levi was taken to Gouveneur Hospital "several hours after his accident."

An inspection of the brick cell building on December 13, 1911 discovered disturbing conditions.  Saying there were "two rows of cells back to back, eight on one side and seven on the other, with a passageway all around," it noted, "There are no wash-bowls and no shower baths."  The "toilets" used by prisoners were makeshift privies, "in appearance like a megaphone set into a sewer pipe."  The inspectors concluded, "The whole place is inexpressively bad and a disgrace to the city.  It should be abandoned with as little delay as possible and a modern prison built."

That did not happen and following an inspection two years later, State Prisoner Henry Solomon wrote, "This has long been known as the worst police station in the city."  Once again, he stressed that "modern sanitary" water closets should be installed, adding, "wash basins are also needed."  Instead, the rear jail building was simply shut down in 1916 and prisoners were taken to the 13th Precinct on Clinton Street.

On May 20, 1921, the New York Herald reported, "The old Seventh Precinct police station in 247 Madison street, one of the police landmarks of the city, ceased to exist at midnight last night."  The precinct was absorbed into the Oak Street and Clinton Street stations.

Two weeks later, on June 3, John Finck purchased the property "on behalf of a client," as reported by the Proceedings of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund.  It was acquired "for the purpose of turning it into a public shower bath."  

The extensive renovations (that cost $53,000, or about $975,000 in 2026) took four years to complete.  On April 30, 1925, The New York Times reported that Borough President Julius Miller would officially open the baths the next day.  

It was probably during the bath conversion that the Victorian details were removed from the openings. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Saying that the bath was "something very much needed in this densely populated neighborhood, Miller described:

This old police station has been entirely transformed.  The cells in the yard have been torn down, the yard cleared, a pavement laid and it is now a community playground.  There is a waiting room on the first floor, also women's shower room; on the second floor, men's shower room; and on the third floor, men's and women's shower rooms.

The Madison Street Free Baths operated until 1970.  It was demolished for the first section of the Gouverneur Healthcare Services Building.

photographer by Halil Serkan Kutun

The Lost P. Divver Assc. Clubhouse - 59 Madison Street

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In the second half of the 19th century, small political clubs dotted the city.  It was a time when the sons of struggling immigrants could rise to wealth and power through political affiliations.  Among them was Patrick Divver, widely known as Paddy.  Born in Ireland on May 1, 1844 the youngest of 11 children, his parents brought him to New York City when he was two.  

After attending public school, he started out as a messenger boy on Broadway and later apprenticed as a "morocco dresser" earning $2.50 per week.  (A morocco dresser decorated leather for book bindings and such.  Divver's pay would translate to about $50 today.)  He got married just after his 17th birthday.  The New York Times would later note, "He was the father of fifteen children and he strove to rear them with every advantage within his reach."

With that goal in mind, he turned to politics and in 1866 was a member of the Tammany Hall General Committee.  He became a leader in his Lower East Side Second Assembly District and when Mayor Hugh J. Grant took office in 1890, he appointed Divver a Police Justice.  The New York Times would later say, "It has been said that he meted out justice with rare fairness, that ungrammatical lingo was probably his greatest fault." 

Tammany Hall Souvenir of the Inauguration of Cleveland and Stevenson, 1893 (copyright expired)

A reporter from the New York Herald flatly asked Divver if he used his popularity in the assembly district to wrest the justice position.  The journalist wrote:

In reference to an insinuation that he owed his appointment partly to a threat on his part to forsake Tammany Hall unless he got a fat office, he laughed and said that it would take a great deal more than failure to get an office to separate him from Tammany Hall.

On June 28, 1890, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the Patrick Divver Association had purchased 59 Madison Street for $14,000 (about $498,000 in 2026).  The notice mentioned, "three-story stone clubhouse projected."

The New York Herald described the Patrick Divver Association on December 20, 1890 as "partly a political and partly a social organization."  When the club purchased the Madison Street property its 400 members occupied rooms at 80 Oliver Street.  The article said that all the funds necessary to build the proposed clubhouse had been raised.  "The building will be up in less than a year," it said.

On January 22, 1891, the New York Herald reported, "Architect John S. O'Meara was employed to make the drawings and specifications."  The article said, "the other east side associations...are green with envy," noting that the new clubhouse would have "all the modern improvements and appliances, hot and cold water, gas, steam, and lavatories."

The New York Herald, January 22, 1891 (copyright expired)

O'Meara blended Romanesque Revival with Flemish Renaissance Revival to create his design.  The undressed brownstone of the arched first floor openings and of the Palladian-inspired second story grouping were drawn from the former, while the striking stepped gable with cascading volutes reflected the latter.   The New York Herald said, "The entrance steps will be of white marble, and in place of storm doors there will be gates of heavy iron."

Between the first and second floors would be a large terra cotta shield with the monogram "P.D.A."  The newspaper promised, "the letters will be so plain that they can be read a block away."

A terra cotta shield bore the monogram of the club.  cropped image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Above the center window of the second floor was a sculpted head of a Native American chief, "to indicate that the Divverites are Tammany braves," explained the New York Herald.  Turning to the interior, the article said:

The entrance door opens into a wide hallway.  To the left and in front will be a small reception room, in the window of which the Divverites may sit and stare in the most approved club fashion.  Back of this is the assembly room, 73 feet long.  A wide stairway leads to the second floor.  In front is a small committee room, and six card rooms open into each other, and with a large billiard room occupy the rest of the floor, except the janitor's living rooms.  The basement contains bowling alleys.

O'Meara projected the cost of construction at $20,000, or about $711,000 today.  The project was completed within the year and on December 11, 1891, The Evening World announced, "The Divver Club, of the Second Assembly District, formerly known as the P. Divver Association, will formally open its new clubhouse at 59 Madison street next Monday evening."

Trouble came to Patrick Divver three years later.  While he was away on vacation on the West Coast, several of his election district officers were arrested for election fraud.  "Some of them were fined, and some went to Sing Sing," reported The New York Times on October 21, 1894.  When Divver returned, he would not comment on the scandal.  "This made his followers more dissatisfied than ever, and there came very near a revolt in the district," said the article.

Divver did not survive the uproar.  The New York Times reported, "Patrick Divver has resigned the leadership of Tammany Hall in the Second Assembly District."  Even his former benefactor turned away.  "There was great rejoicing at Hugh J. Grant's headquarters...when his resignation arrived there late yesterday afternoon," said the article.

Patrick Divver took a long respite in California.  In the meantime, the Divver Club went on.  

The members had a significant scare on December 4, 1896.  The New York Journal reported, "A respectable gathering of the members was on hand last night when the gas meter in the cellar exploded."  The members fled to the street and "in a jiffy the flames began to ascend."  Firefighters arrived quickly and extinguished the blaze, but not before "the new furniture of the club" was damaged, "and the building also."  

Patrick Divver returned to New York late in 1897 and things between him and the district officials were patched up.  On December 3, The Sun reported that the members of the Second Assembly District, "who have been fighting him for two years shook hands and made it up last night."  The article said, "everybody recognized Divver as the new leader."

Divver held the reins until 1901, losing the leadership to Alderman Thomas F. Foley.  Patrick Divver died in his home at 7 Madison Street on January 28, 1903.  In reporting his death, the New Jersey newspaper The Morning Call remarked, "'Paddy' Divver was one of the picturesque figures of the Tammany regime."

At the time, the Second District Municipal Court had been "situated above a saloon at the corner of Centre and Pearl Streets," since 1890, according to The New York Times.  On September 16, 1904 the newspaper reported that the court "moved to its new quarters yesterday morning in the P. Divver Association's clubhouse."  The Divver Club moved into the basement of the courthouse, "and will receive $3,000 a year from the city for rent for the use of the building."

When the three-year lease expired, The Downtown Tammany Club, headed by Divver's former political rival Thomas F. Foley, moved into 59 Madison Street.  

Like Divver, Thomas Francis Foley came from humble roots.  He left school at the age of 13 to support his widowed mother by working as a blacksmith's helper.  By the time he began his political career in 1877 as an election district captain, he was a saloon owner.

On November 3, 1917, Tom Foley, an ardent anti-suffragist, told The Sun reporter Eleanor Booth Simmons, "that women should never, no never, be admitted to the nice comfortable Democratic clubhouse at 59 Madison Street."  But three days later, New York State approved women's right to vote.  On February 24, 1918, Simmons wrote, "I called him up this week to ask what arrangements had been made about the new voters at the Democratic clubhouse at 59 Madison street.  His voice came resignedly over the wire, as of one who admitted his chastisement."

An enormous Tammany banner stretches across Madison Street in front of the clubhouse in October 1933.  from the collection of the New York Pubic Library

Foley (no doubt begrudgingly) replied, "Oh yes, the women are here, they are voters, and they will have the use of the clubhouse the same as the men.  So far no arrangements have been made for their meeting on separate nights...It is their clubhouse as much as it is the men's."

In its July 1924 issue, The Atlantic Monthly commented, "Perhaps the most famous [Tammany clubhouse] is the Downtown Tammany Club at 59 Madison Street...which is run under the aegis of Tom Foley, one of the last of the old-type leaders.  Foley began life as a saloon keeper and his ways have been none too gentle." 

Thomas Francis Foley died in 1925.  On the day after his funeral, The New York Times ran the headline, "East Side Crowds Mourn the Passing of Almost the Last of Old-Time Leaders."  

The Downtown Tammany Clubhouse continued to provide for the community.  On July 27, 1927, for instance, The New York Times reported, "More than 10,000 women and children attended the picnic and outing of the Downtown Tammany Club of 59 Madison Street, which is Governor [Alfred] Smith's old district, held yesterday in Battery Park."  The article said that about 25,000 hot dogs and 4,000 quarts of ice cream were consumed.

A disturbing incident occurred a decade later.  The club members collected money for 1,500 bags "of Christmas cheer" for poor families in the district.  The bags were already delivered and stored in the cellar when on December 23, five gunmen stormed the clubhouse and stole the money.  The Tammany leader of what was now the First Assembly District, Dr. Santangelo, stepped forward to say he would personally cover the loss.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On January 17, 1942, The New York Times reported, "Memories of the colorful days in Democratic politics on the lower East Side of Manhattan, when Paddy Divver and 'Big Tom' Foley ruled the destinies of Tammany in that neighborhood, were revived yesterday by the announcement of the sale of the property at 59 Madison Street."  The article said that the buyer was "a well-known funeral director" who "will remodel it."

The property was acquired by the city in 1946 to make way for the Alfred E. Smith Playground, dedicated in 1950.

The 1890 The Lincoln - 84 Madison Street

 

Alexandre I. Finkle was born in New Orleans, the son of Polish immigrants.  He studied painting and architecture in Paris at the National and Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.  His background in architecture and art was reflected in the many Lower East Side tenement buildings he designed.  His dramatic style incorporated effusive decorations. 

Real estate developer Albert Stake, who lived on Staten Island, was also busy in the tenement district.  On November 20, 1889, he purchased the two 25-foot-wide buildings at 84 and 86 Madison Street from Samuel Weil.  The Real Estate Record & Guide remarked, "new tenements projected."

Stake commissioned Finkle to design the replacement buildings.  The plans described two "five-story and basement brick and stone flats," each to cost $19,000 (about $650,000 in 2025).  Finkle's design for 84 Madison Street, called the Lincoln, was a splashy blend of Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival styles.

The centered stoop separated two stores at the basement level.  The entrance sat within a portico upheld by polished granite columns.  Finke decorated the top half of the first floor with a checkerboard of Queen Anne tiles above a foliate terra cotta band.  The upper four floors, overall Renaissance Revival in style, were clad in red brick and trimmed in limestone and pressed metal.  

Embossed metal panels filled the tympana of the arched openings of the second floor.  They were separated by paired Corinthian pilasters supported by rather clumsily carved winged heads.  Terra cotta tiles reappeared at this level.

Three-story piers at the third through fifth floors sat upon intricately carved bases and terminated in Corinthian capitals.  Foliate, pressed metal spandrel panels eliminated the cost of carved stone.  Finke's vigorous cornice incorporated a swan's neck pediment and a banner announcing the building's name under a crest of stars and stripes.

The building was completed in 1890 and Albert Stake was obviously pleased with the results.  He immediately hired Finke to reproduce the design at the Garfield at 104 Forsyth Street, merely replacing the name of one assassinated President with another.

Among the initial residents was Dr. A. T. Joyce, who described the neighborhood in dark terms in The World on August 21, 1890.  In urging for a playground, he said in part,

In treating children in this locality, the first thing that I am compelled to do is send them away from the fearful atmosphere.  Those who are unable to go often die in consequence.

Children in the crowded neighborhood were threatened not only by the unhealthful conditions that concerned Dr. Joyce, but by violence and crime.  On May 13, 1895, The Press reported on four 17-year-old boys that were caught in the act of burglarizing 202 South Street.  As two teens were ransacking inside, William Coleman, who lived here, and another boy stood as lookouts.  They called out when police neared.  All four perpetrators were arrested.

Coleman would be arrested again just eight months later.  On January 24, 1896, The World titled an article, "Police At Fever Heat" and reported about a crackdown on gang activities.  Among the targets was the Pelican Club, "a political and social organization of great importance," said the article.  The club was, more accurately, a criminal gang.  A search of the clubrooms found stolen items.  Among those arrested, in addition to Coleman, was James Murphy, who also lived in the Lincoln.  

Tenement residents lived dismal existences and many found respite in the Lower East Side opium dens.  One nearly took the life of 32-year-old Mary Bergen on November 26, 1896.  The Sun said she was removed from 25 Hamilton Street shortly before midnight, "suffering from poisoning caused by smoking opium."

John Nolan, a laborer, lived in the Lincoln at the time.  On the night of July 18, 1897, Officer Keefe witnessed him kick a stray cat at Catherine and South Streets.  He appeared before a judge on August 19 and declared, "the animal was mad and had attacked him, and that he kicked it in self-defense," according to The Sun.  Keefe, on the other hand, said Nolan "was drunk and had kicked the cat in a spirit of wantonness."  The judge found the officer's story more believable.  Nolan was fined, but The New York Herald reported that he "could not pay a $25 fine and will spend ten days in the Tombs."

Like William Coleman, Morris Pope was involved in criminal activities at an early age.  On the night of August 20, 1897, the 16-year-old entered the vacant house at 521 Pearl Street.  It had been condemned by the city to make way for the widening of Elm Street (which subsequently became Lafayette Street).  Pope stole "all the lead pipe on three floors," reported The Sun.  The water had not been turned off in the building, and "the house was flooded."  As Pope lugged the heavy piping out of the building, he was arrested.

Louis Glassen and his parents appeared in the Essex Market Court on February 26, 1898 to answer for the 12-year-old's charge of disorderly conduct.  The previous afternoon, Policeman Lues was on the block when a group of boys got into a fight, throwing stones at one another.  Glassen approached the cop and said, "Officer, go over there and stop those boys."

Lues told him, "I'm watching them."

The feisty and, perhaps, impertinent boy replied, "Say, you big stuff, is that what you are paid for?"  When he called Lues a name, the policeman arrested him.

It may have been Louis Glassen's tears in the courtroom that softened Magistrate Meade's heart.  The Sun reported that the judge declared, "Little boy, you must not bother the police force.  You are too young yet, beside you might get hurt.  I will discharge you this time."

Not all residents, of course, appeared in newsprint because of  their crimes.  Frank Thomas was hard working and respectable.  The 32-year-old worked for the Brooklyn Warehouse and Transfer Company.  On November 29, 1898, he and five co-workers were struggling to replace a derailed freight car onto the tracks.  Tragically, the jack they were using suddenly slipped, crashing the car onto Thomas and fatally crushing him.

As late as the 1940s, the portico and original stoop ironwork survived.  via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

Kate Mellen went to Coney Island on the hot afternoon of July 24, 1910.  The 28-year-old was frolicking in the ocean when about 5:30 she was "carried out by the undertow," according to The New York Times.  David Stark heard her cries.  The firefighter was on his day off and had gone to Coney Island with friends "for a dip in the surf."  

Stark looked around for a lifeguard, but there was none in sight.  He plunged into the water and towards the arm he had seen flailing above the surface.  About 100 yards from the shore, he dived, but did not find her.  He gasped a breath and went down again.  This time he felt Mellen's unconscious body and pulled her to the surface by her hair.  The firefighter struggled with "a dead weight" towards the shore.  The article said, "Battling against the tide, the fireman finally reached the beach with his burden, where he collapsed from exhaustion."

Harry Smith, who lived here in the early 1920s, worked as a truck driver for the trucking firm of Jacob Lipschitz.  On June 7, 1922, the 21-year-old picked up a shipment of army trousers at a Hudson River pier consigned to the Triad Corporation on Lafayette Street.  The New York Herald reported, "After the goods had been loaded on the truck both Smith and the truck disappeared."  The trousers were valued at $10,000, or about $182,000 today.  The empty truck was later found abandoned in Jersey City.  On June 30, detectives from the West 13th Street station recognized Smith on the street and arrested him.

A bizarre and horrifying accident befell resident Jean Manghise on July 14, 1946.  The 28-year-old was riding in the car of Joseph Casaro on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island that night.  Her two-year-old son, Andrew, was in the rear seat.  The Staten Island Advance reported that around 8:00, "in some undetermined manner, the rear door suddenly opened."  In a instance, Jean's maternal reflex vaulted her over the seat to save her son.  She and Andrew flew out of the moving automobile.  The toddler landed on his mother's body, saving him from injury.  Jean, however, was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital with "what might be a fractured skull," said the article.

The basement and first floor of the 135-year-old building have been abused.  The portico was removed and the 1890 ironwork replaced.  A covering of gray paint obscures the brownstone and the polychromed tiles, and a jail-worthy security gate replaces the door.  Above, however, Alexandre I. Finkle's showstopping design remains intact.

photographs by the author

The Nicholas Keane House - 96 Madison Street

 

In the 1820s and 1830s, prim Federal-style houses rose along the Madison Street block between Catherine and Market Streets.  As early as 1830, Lewis Higgins and his family occupied 80 Madison Street, a two-and-a-half story, brick-faced home (renumbered 96 in 1852).  Two dormers pierced its peaked roof.  Higgins was a wholesale grocer at the nearby Catherine Market.

By the mid-1840s, the Jonathan Gardiner Fleet family occupied the house.  Born in 1801, Gardiner and his wife, the former Lydia Seaman, had four children, Harriette Rebecca, Sarah Cornelia, Maria, and Jennie.  Fleet operated two livery stables.

The family received a scare at around 7:30 on the night of March 30, 1847 when a fire started.  The Evening Post reported, "It was caused by a bed in the second story accidentally taking fire."  How the bed caught fire was not explained.

The Fleet family left Madison Street in the spring of 1851.  As was common, they sold everything in the house and started over in their new home.  An auction listing on March 28 reflected the Fleets' comfortable lifestyle.  It included, "tapestry carpets, rosewood furniture covered in maroon velvet, sofa, tete a tete," marble top center table, a piano forte, and oil paintings.

Grasset Launy, a coppersmith, occupied the house through 1858, followed by Thomas Rice, who ran a saloon and hotel at 44 Catherine Street.  

James W. Hefflin took possession of 96 Madison Street from Rice in 1865.  Although he listed his profession as running a boardinghouse, the size of the residence limited his number of boarders.  That year William Hutchinson, a tailor, and his family lived here, and in 1867 Cornelius Haggerty, an oysterman at the Catherine Market, boarded here.  Hannah Stapleton, a widow, and her son, Tobias, who was a printer, lived here the following year.

Hefflin was not necessarily an upstanding citizen.  On December 3, 1868, the New York Evening Express reported that he had been arrested.  Describing him as "said to have been an ex-policeman, but at present the owner of a sailors' boarding house at No. 96 Madison street," the article said he had broken into the saloon at 41 Market Street at 1:00 that morning and stole $3,000 in cash and "a lot of segars of the value of $7.50."  (The cash would translate to about $33,600 in 2025.)

The article said:

Hefferon [sic] was found in the building up stairs with a jimmy, skeleton key, and a lot of segars beside him, and a receipt from the New York Gas Company, which the bartender testified was in the desk from which the money was taken, was picked up when the prisoner was found.

Hefflin told the judge, "it was a woman that brought him there."

His imprisonment ended Hefflin's career of running the boardinghouse at 96 Madison Street and it became home to the Nicholas Keane family.  Keane had operated a chandler shop at 171 South Street since 1849.  

Also living here with the Keanes was their adult son, Nicholas Jr., and his wife, Bridget.  The younger Nicholas worked in his father's business and, interestingly, spelled his surname Kane, perhaps to differentiate him from his father.  The Kanes had two children, David and Mary.

On December 4, 1879, The Sun reported, "Nicholas Keane, an old resident of the Seventh Ward, died in his home, 96 Madison street, yesterday in his 55th year.  The article mentioned that he "amassed a fortune" in his business and "was a conspicuous member of St. James's Roman Catholic Church."

The Kanes soon leased the house, and it was again operated as a boarding or rooming house.  In the spring of 1884, a sailor, Thomas Jackson, was brought here with serious injuries.  Jackson had been aboard the William A. Lincoln heading to Manila on February 25 when he was "cruelly beaten," according to a crewmate, with an iron bar by the ship's captain.  When the ship returned to New York, another sailor, Abraham Weeden, had Captain M. J. Daly arrested.  The New York Times reported on May 20, "Jackson is now laid up at No. 96 Madison-street on account of the injuries received."

In September 1886, David J. Kane, Nicholas's son, hired architect Bernard McGurk, to enlarge the house by raising the attic to a full floor and adding a one-story extension in the rear.  McGurk added stylish pressed metal lintels to the openings and a triangular pediment above the entrance.  An Italianate-style bracketed cornice finished the renovations.

As early as 1941, the brick was painted.  Before the 1886 renovations, the house matched the Federal-style house down the block.  via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

As early as the mid-1890s, Mary Kane Carroll, David's sister and daughter of Nicholas, occupied the house.  She and her husband, Michael Carroll, were living here when a fire caused $1,200 worth of damages.

On October 19, 1910, The New York Times reported that Mary, "daughter of the late Nicholas Kane and Bridget Kane, and widow of Michael Carroll," had died the previous day.  The following year, in August, David J. Kane hired architect Jacob Fisher to reconfigure the interior floorplan as a "tenement," according to Fisher's filing.

On April 3, 1918, The Evening World reported, "Shichisaburo Hosaki, twenty-five, a Japanese ship steward, was killed by one of his roommates in a sailors' boarding-house at No. 96 Madison Street at 2 A.M. to-day."  The article explained that four Japanese shared a room on the top floor.  One of them came home drunk and Hosaki scolded him.  "He drew a clasp knife and slashed Hosaki three times on the neck, killing him almost instantly," said the article.  His slayer fled before his roommates could stop him.

The following month, on May 13, Hitash Mogi, another steamer steward, was arrested in Boston.  Mogi admitted being in the room at the time of the slaying but insisted he, "had nothing to do with it."  He insisted the crime "was the result of a family vendetta" and named Roy Shida as the murderer.

A twist in the case occurred four weeks later when Lota K. Kamali was arrested in Lima, Ohio.  He was appearing with a troop of Hawaiian singers and guitar players at the Orpheum theater there.  The Lima Times-Democrat reported on June 18 that he was arrested for disorderly conduct and "suspicion of being the man wanted for the murder of Shichisaburo Hosaki, a Japanese knifed at New York on April 3d."

As it turned out, the case was never solved.  Both Mogi and Kamali were released without being charged for the murder.

Painted shades of blue today, the house sits within a streetscape of late 19th century tenement buildings.  The sole surviving relic of the block's earliest years, it looks much as it did in 1886 when David Kane remodeled it.

photograph by the author

The 1894 123 Madison Street

 

Margaret Reilly, often known as Maggie, purchased the three-story brick store and tenement on the northeast corner of Market and Madison Streets on July 2, 1891.  She paid Sophia L. Schroeder $27,500 for the property, or about $950,000 in 2025.  Once a refined neighborhood of prim, Federal-style homes, the area was now populated with thousands of struggling immigrants.

Exactly two years later Margaret Reilly hired architect F. Ienth to design a replacement building on the site.  (Maggie would have a convenient viewpoint to monitor the project's progress.  She lived directly across Madison Street at No. 124.)  Ienth, who is little known today, placed the construction costs at $22,000, equal to about $769,000 today.

Completed in 1894, the impressive-looking structure was a lush blending of Queen Anne and neo-Grec styles.  Two stores occupied the ground floor--one at 40 Market Street with a chamfered corner entrance and the other 123 Madison Street.  The upper floors were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The double-doored entrance sat within a columned portico, crowned with lacy iron cresting.  Ienth lavished the facade with hefty neo-Grec earred lintels and delicate fan-filled tympana, creating a visual feast.  He finished with an ambitious pressed metal cornice that included a handsome embossed shell on the Madison Street elevation.

Typical of the demographics at the time, the building filled with mostly Irish and Jewish immigrants.  Both groups suffered discrimination, as Heyman Weinstock discovered in the spring of 1895.

Weinstock was described by The Evening World as "a young cloakmaker."  On the evening of Saturday March 23, he was talking to friends on the corner of Delancey and Pitt Streets.  Plainclothes officer Jean C. Fargo "purposely jostled against him," according to Weinstock, who added that Fargo was "apparently under the influence of liquor."  The Evening World said, "When Weinstock remonstrated the officer assaulted him, at the same time throwing open his coat and exposing his shield."

Weinstock and his friends fled, "to avoid further violence," and the following Monday he went to the Delancey Street station to complain about Fargo.  After telling his story, according to Weinstock, the sergeant ordered, "Get out of here you -------."  The Evening World said, "Instantly several other officers and the doorman made a rush at him...Weinstock said he had to flee for his life." 

The Hughes family lived here in 1899 when 19-year-old Mary fell in love.  Her beaux was Samuel J. McGill, a 25-year-old river pilot.  On April 30, the couple went to the Jefferson Market Courthouse to be married.  They brought along two friends as witnesses.  The Morning Telegraph reported, 

The courtroom was crowded about 9 o'clock with an assemblage of drunks, crooks, disorderly persons and women of shady character, who had been gathered in the police dragnet, when a party of four, two pretty young women, escorted by two stalwart young men, entered.

The women were tastefully dressed in traveling costumes, and one in particular, a brunette, with large, expressive blue eyes, was blushing.

They explained their presence to Officer Peter Burns ("whose big walrus mustache is the envy of the court squad," according to The Morning Telegraph), and he passed the message to Magistrate Deuel.  The wise justice told the officer to have them "sit down for a while and watch some of the cases of ill-mated couples that may come up, and then if they want the ceremony performed, all right."

The four sat in the rear of the courtroom and listened to several hearings.  One concerned a woman who accused her husband of being an abusive drunk who failed to support their two children.  The husband was sentenced to three months in jail.  The woman's narrative did not dissuade the lovers.

Brownstone blocks on the second floor corner announce the streets.

The cautious magistrate questioned Mary "at length," including asking if her parents were aware of her intentions.  She insisted they did and explained, "Sam and myself want to get married without going through the formality of a reception.  He is going away tonight on his boat and I want to go along as his wife.  That is why we are in a hurry."  After questioning the witnesses, Magistrate Deuel was swayed and he "tied the knot in a few words."  

In March 1900, the storefront at 123 Madison Street was vacant.  Evangelist Wilson H. Dunlop leased it as a make-shift mission.  Dunlop "has been a familiar figure on the lower east side for four years," explained the Watertown, New York Daily Times.  "He endeavors to Christianize the Hebrews."  The Sun said, "The glass in the two show windows was backed up with colored lithographs of various scenes in the life of Christ and printed Christian texts."

Dunlop intended to open the mission on Sunday, March 4.  He started with a "parade," that began at 3:00.  The Sun reported, 

Dunlap has a long-bodied carryall [a type of wagon] decorated at the four corners with placards bearing Scriptural texts held aloft on uprights.  It is painted blue and drawn by two horses.  The driver is a negro and one of the Gospel party is a young negress.  Two young white women and a man preacher, who is a converted Jew, complete the party.  Dunlap himself is a cripple.

The intended converts, however, were not interested.  "No sooner had Dunlap's wagon drawn up than the crowd surrounded it, hooting and shouting."  They threw rotten vegetables "or other missiles" at the evangelist and his colleagues.  Finally, the wagon pulled to the curb at 123 Madison Street.  The party sat there for some time as they considered their next move.  The article said, "but as the crowd of youngsters around it was clearly hostile, no attempt was made to hold any religious service."  The wagon left at 4:00.

Dunlap's second attempt ended in tragedy.  At 3:00 on the afternoon of March 11, the wagon--which was outfitted with a melodeon (a type of parlor organ) and miniature altar--pulled up to 123 Madison Street again.  In the wagon with Dunlap were "two attendants and seven women and children, missionary workers," according to the Daily Times.

The newspaper reported, "A crowd of men and boys began to jeer him."  The wagon started off to the nearest police station, but it was blocked by the growing crowd.  "Stones were thrown at those in the wagon," reported the Daily Times.  Terrified, 19-year-old Mabel Russell grabbed the horsewhip and "plied it on the nearest heads."  A stone struck her in the face.  The article said, "She was knocked from the wagon and under the wheels, both of which passed over her body."  She was taken to Dunlap's residence, where a doctor said it was "doubtful if she would recover."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Dunlap never opened his mission.  Within months the space was occupied by A. Zeleza's sewing machine store.  He employed 16-year-old Louis Goldearr as a messenger boy.  

Early on the morning of January 9, 1901, Zeleza gave him $10 to purchase supplies at 39 Warren Street.  Goldearr took the Madison Street streetcar.  Later he recalled, "that opposite him sat a young man, who eyed him closely."  Goldearr did not return to 123 Madison Street, nor did he come home that night.

Two days later, the teen returned.  The New York Herald reported, "The boy was covered with mud and was almost fainting from exhaustion and exposure."  His story was nearly unbelievable.  Goldearr said the young man on the streetcar had following him to 39 Warren Street.  In the hallway, he was choked and robbed of the $10.  The New York Times related, "Then the lad says he lost consciousness, and woke up yesterday morning lying beside a gravestone in a cemetery."  That cemetery was in Mount Vernon, New York, 22 miles away.  Goldearr walked the entire distance to Manhattan.

A doctor said he was "suffering from exposure, exhaustion and possibly from the effects of some drug."  The teen was in critical condition.  A. Zeleza was supportive, saying he believed his story and stressed that Goldearr had frequently been entrusted with much larger amounts of cash.

R. Paviro's grocery store was in the 40 Market Street space in 1906, and by 1917, the Madison Street storefront was home to the Downtown Tammany Club.  Nearly six decades later, the commercial space at 123 Madison Street held the office of the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council.

In 2015, Mr. Fong's restaurant operated in 40 Market Street, and recently the Golden Diner opened in the Madison Street side.  F. Ienth's striking brick-and-brownstone building is a commanding presence in the neighborhood.

photographs by the author

The Methodist Mission Building - 209 Madison Street

 

photograph via apartments.com

When Joseph C. Skaden's three-story brick house at 209 Madison Street was offered for sale shortly after his death in 1853, it was described as having "all the latest improvements, cold and hot water baths, gas, &c."  The advertisement noted, "The location [is] one of the most desirable in the seventh Ward."  And an inventory of the furnishings testified to the high-end status of the neighborhood.  It included a "rosewood parlor suite in crimson plush, with covers; mahogany marble-top chamber furniture" as well as "fine oil-paintings [and] marble mantel ornaments."

By the mid-1870s, 209 Madison Street was home to the family of Reverend M. F. Compton.  His son, George N. Compton, would become a Methodist minister as well.  

On June 25, 1885, a trio of purchasers acquired the house for $15,000--or about $435,000 in 2023 money.  In the three decades since Joseph Skaden's death, the neighborhood had greatly changed.  Most of the once-refined homes had been converted to rooming houses, or demolished to make way for tenements for the waves of immigrants flooding the Lower East Side.  

The group had purchased 209 Madison Street for the New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  Rev. George N. Compton, who had previously lived in the house, was no doubt highly involved in the transaction--he was the pastor of the Madison Street Mission, founded around 1856.

The trustees hired the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine to make massive renovations.  Their plans, filed in June 1886, called for the "front [wall] taken down and rebuilt and rear wall in basement and first story taken out and iron beams furnished, height of building increased 4 feet."  The plans further noted that the top floors were "to be occupied as a mission chapel."  

The new home for the Madison Street Mission (better known as the Methodist Mission), left little trace of the building's domestic beginnings.  D. & J. Jardine's design was an ecclesiastical take on Romanesque Revival.  The three arched openings of the first floor shared a continuous, terra cotta triple eyebrow.  The architects saved the Mission Society funds by placing a flat terra cotta pediment over the entrance, rather than a hood or portico.  The double-height chapel in what had been the second and third floors was illuminated by two tall stained glass panels that flanked a rose window.

Rev. George N. Compton, who also served as the superintendent of the Sunday School, had a considerable commute.  He lived far north at 223 East 124th Street.  Only the sexton, John R. Hayes, lived in the mission building.

The Methodist Mission administered to the impoverished residents of the neighborhood by supplying medical aid as well as religious services.  Physician William James Hall was in charge of the mission's dispensary and tended to the sick locals.  The Gospel in All Lands would later say (rather self-righteously), that the Methodist doctor worked "among Roman Catholics and Jews, drunkards and thieves, in the Madison Street Mission...rejoicing in the work of relieving distress, and leading the sinful to the Physician of souls."

On August 12, 1890, Dr. Hall addressed an open-air meeting of the Seventh Ward, demanding that Rutgers Slip be made into a park.  The World commented that the neighborhood housed "one of the densest tenement populations in the city."  Hall said in part, "Some years ago, the people of the neighborhood could get a breath of pure air along the river front, but the demands of commerce have driven them back, and now they have only narrow and ill-smelling streets, confined by tall tenement houses."  He predicted victory for the locals, saying "This place that is now a disease-breeding scar on the face of New York will become a health-giving ornament and a joy to all the children."

A week later, The World reported that children were flocking to the Methodist Street Mission to join the fight.  The article said the mission "has become the recruiting place during the past week of the little people of the Seventh Ward who have set their heads on having Rutgers slip as a playground."  (An open space for children was, indeed, needed.  Of the 75,000 people living in the ward, 35,000 of them were children.  Dr. J. Coughlin of the Anti-Poverty Society told a reporter from The World that on hot days, "They have nothing left them but to sit in the windows and on the doorsteps and shrivel up in the sun.")

An example of the plight of the tenement dwellers was Norbert Pfannerer, an unemployed shoemaker who was referred to the mission in January 1894 by Police Headquarters.  He had gone there in desperation, begging "for some work that he might earn bread for his loved ones," according to The Evening World on January 23.  

"We are starving," he pleaded, "but I don't want charity.  I only want to work and earn bread."

Pfannerer and his family lived on the top floor of a tenement building.  His eldest child was 6 years old and the youngest not yet a year.  When his wife gave birth to the last child, according to The World, "her husband was too poor to furnish her with the necessaries of life which her condition required, and consumption [i.e. tuberculosis] rapidly seized upon her."  For the past few days the family had eaten only "a soup made from stale bread."

In 1895 the Methodist Mission Society moved the Hope of Israel Mission into the building.  Founded in 1893, it continued the dispensary work, under Dr. A. C. Grimm, who treated from 50 to 80 patients a week that year.  

In his first report to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. A. C. Gaebelein said:

Our new quarters at 209 Madison Street are admirably fitted for our mission work.  By the help of kind friends, we have been enabled to refurnish the whole house, and also to make very necessary repairs in the plumbing roof painting, etc., amounting in all to about four hundred dollars.  Here we have our offices and the headquarters of our publication department.

A reading room in the basement contained Bibles in English, German, Hebrew and Russian, along with newspapers in those languages.  

The goal of this group, however, was notably different from the Madison Street Mission.  As the 20th century neared, the Lower East Side was increasingly filling with Jewish immigrants.  The Hope of Israel Mission set out to convert them.  

Rev. Gaebelein insisted there were no strong-armed tactics involved.  He said the neighborhood Jews "understand now that we are not doing this work from any selfish motive or trying to proselyte them, but that we have a higher aim...No effort is made to induce passers-by to enter the church, though a few signs in jargon bidding everyone welcome hang in the windows."

Ironically, in June 1897 the Mission Society sold the building for $24,000 to congregation Chevra Etz Chaim Anshe Walosin.  Now a synagogue, the basement of the building where the Hope of Israel Mission attempted to convert Jews to Christianity was transformed into a mikveh (a ritual bath) in 1907.  Architect David Stone's renovations included, "toilets, tubs and vault" at a cost of more than $445,000 by today's conversion.

In 1915 the congregation hired architect Fred Horowitz to make exterior alterations.  It was possibly at this time that the a Magen David, or Star of David, was imposed upon the rose window and onion dome-like pinnacles crowned with Magen Davids were placed upon the parapet.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

At some point following World War I the building became home to Congregation Agudath Achim Anshei Barisoff, organized in 1891.  The synagogue continued to serve the neighborhood until the structure was converted to residential purposes in 1993.  The double-height worship space was floored over, creating two internal stories.  

The stoop and stained glass windows were removed, and the rose window bricked up.  Shop spaces were installed in the basement and former first floor.  There were now three apartments per floor in the upper portion.

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