The Altered John Bigelow House - 21 Gramercy Park

 

image via forrent.com

By 1849, Samuel B. Ruggles’ ambitious project of a high-toned residential enclave centered around his Gramercy Square was well underway.  Like Washington Square and St. John’s Park, fine mansions would soon encircle the landscaped park.  Among the earliest of which was the home of Henry Trowbridge at 21 Gramercy Park, erected in 1851.  

Trowbridge was the head of the Henry Trowbridge & Co. drygoods firm at 63 Maiden Lane.  His 26-foot-wide house was four stories tall above a high English basement level.  Its Italianate design included floor-to-ceiling parlor windows that were, most likely, fronted by a cast iron balcony; elliptically arched openings within molded architrave frames; and a bracketed cornice.

Beginning in 1853, the Trowbridges shared the house with Silas Moore Stilwell, his wife, Louisa Caroline Norsworthy, and their two children, Silas Jr. and Harrison.  Stilwell had married Louisa in 1842 when he was 42 years old.  He had served in the New York State Assembly from 1830 to 1833 and had notably proposed the 1831 Stilwell Act, which abolished imprisonment because of debt.

On February 16, 1860, Trowbridge advertised in the New York Morning Courier:

Gramercy Park Property For Sale--The superior four story brown stone front house, No. 21 Gramercy Park, 20th street, next to the corner of Irving Place; built in the best manner expressly for the owner...Possession can be given immediately.  For terms and permission to examine the premises apply to Henry Trowbridge, No. 38 Walker St.

For the next two decades, 21 Gramercy Park would be home to Benjamin J. Curtis, a merchant whose place of business was 15 Park Place.  While the Curtis family lived here, John Bigelow was becoming a major figure in American diplomacy.

Born on November 25, 1817, Bigelow was admitted to the bar in 1838.  In 1849 he joined William Cullen Bryant as editor of the New York Evening Post, a position he held until 1861.  That year President Abraham Lincoln appointed him American Consul in Paris.  Upon the death of Minister to France William L. Dayton in 1864, Bigelow took over that role.

John Bigelow in 1850, the year he married Jane Poultney.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The 1907 Old Buildings of New York City would recall, "While at Paris, he published 'Les Etats-Unis D'Amerique.'  This work corrected the erroneous views of the French as to the relative commercial importance of the Northern and Southern states, and was very effective in discouraging the supposed desire of the French Government for the disruption of the Union."  Bigelow also negotiated with Napoleon III about withdrawing troops from Mexico.

Following the war, Bigelow brought his family back to New York City.  He had married Jane Tunis Poultney in 1850 and they had nine children, six of whom would survive to adulthood.  He was elected Secretary of State of New York in 1872 and served until 1876.  In 1880, the Bigelows moved into 21 Gramercy Park.  Their country home was in Highland Falls, New York. 

The house was the scene of Annie Bigelow's debutante ball in 1882.  She was the couple's third eldest daughter.  The New York Morning Express reported on December 13, "The cotillion was danced, led by Mr. Frank Eldridge and Miss  Jennie Bigelow.  Supper was served shortly after midnight.  Mrs. Bigelow will give a tea on Saturday afternoon." (Jennie, born in 1859, was four years older than her debutante sister.)

 
While her husband continued his diplomatic work and prolific writing, Jane was a major figure in New York society.  On January 8, 1885, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported that she "gave the first of her January receptions yesterday afternoon.  The Misses Annie and Jennie Bigelow assisted in receiving, and about three-hundred guests called." 

Later that year Flora Bigelow married Charles Stuart Dodge.  The newlyweds moved into the Gramercy Park house where daughter Lucie was born in 1890 and John (known as Johnnie) was born in 1894. 

On February 28, 1886, the newspaper reported, "John Bigelow and Miss Bigelow [presumably Grace, the eldest daughter] have sailed from Panama for New York and will arrive at the end of this week.  Mrs. Bigelow gave a dinner of twelve for Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and her daughters yesterday at No. 21 Gramercy Park."

Bigelow's trip to Panama most likely had to do with his staunch support of the concept of the Panama Canal.  He was close friends with French engineer Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who could become instrumental in the construction of the canal.

John returned to New York in time for Jennie's marriage to attorney Charles Edward Tracy in St. George's Church on April 28, 1886.  Afterward, John and Jane hosted a wedding breakfast in the Gramercy Park house.  Among the socially and politically elite guests, according to The New York Times, were the Duke of Sutherland, Whitelaw Reed and his wife, the Pierrepont Morgans, Mr. and Mrs. S. Van Rensselaer Cruger, and Assistant United States District Attorney MacGrane Coxe.

The first hint of Jane's health problems may have come in the fall of 1888.  When a reporter from the New-York Tribune visited the house on November 29, she downplayed her condition.  She said in part, "I have not been very well since my return from Europe, but I wish you would say that I have not been confined to my room at all, and take drives daily in the Park."

But, in fact, she was suffering from Bright's disease, known today as nephritis.  On February 9, 1889, three months after the Tribune's interview, the newspaper reported, "Mrs. John Bigelow died yesterday morning, age sixty, at her home, No. 21 Gramercy Park."  Her funeral was not held in the house, as was customary, but in St. George's Church on Stuyvesant Square.

Annie Bigelow, "the handsome daughter of ex-Minister to France, John Bigelow," as described by the Philadelphia Inquirer, was married to Butler Kenner Harding in the Highland Falls house on October 23, 1889.  The newlyweds moved in with Harding's parents in Philadelphia.  Tragically, Harding contracted influenza around December 28, which developed into pneumonia.  He died on January 6, 1890, just over two months following the wedding.  Annie moved back to 21 Gramercy Park where her daughter, Charlotte, was born.

On Christmas morning 1892, a servant discovered that a thief had made off with much of the family's silver.  The Evening Post reported, "there was no evidence to show that the house had been broken into."  Detectives surmised that the burglar had used a skeleton key to gain entrance.  The article estimated the value of the silver at "from $800 to $1,500," or about $51,800 on the higher end in 2024.

As it turned out, it was a careless servant who was responsible for George Sheridan's being able to walk into the basement entrance.  On the night of December 28, two detectives noticed a young man "lugging a heavy valise, at Delancey Street and the Bowery," according to The New York Times.  They stopped him, and discovered that the suitcase was filled with solid silver items.  When Sheridan could not explain why he had them, he was taken in.  Under intense questioning, he admitted to having stolen the silver from the Bigelow mansion.

He said that at 2 a.m. he was passing the house and noticed the area gate open and the door to the basement unlocked.  He entered, packed up what he could carry in a bag and left.  In addition to what he was taking in the valise to a pawnbroker, the rest of the Bigelow silver was found in his room at a lodging house.

Interestingly, when Jane died, the title of the Gramercy Park house did not go to John, but to Grace.  Therefore, when plans were filed in October 1893 for renovations, she was listed as the owner of record.  It appears that the remodeling (which cost around $350,000 in 2024 money) included the removal of the stoop and the lowering of the entrance to the basement level.  

In 1907, the stoop had already been removed, most likely in the 1893 renovations.  Old Buildings of New York, (copyright expired)

Jennie moved back to the family house in 1896 following the death of Charles Edward Tracy.  Of the three sisters, it was Grace who was the official hostess of 21 Gramercy Park.  When Annie's daughter was introduced to society in 1911, for instance, the New York Press reported on February 2, "Grace Bigelow was one of last night's hostesses, entertaining at dinner at her home, No. 21 Gramercy Park, in compliment of her niece, Charlotte K. Harding.  The dinner was followed by general dancing."

On November 26 that year, The New York Times reported, "John Bigelow, author and diplomat, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, quietly celebrated his ninety-fourth birthday yesterday at his home, 21 Gramercy Park."  The article continued, "There was no celebration.  Mr. Bigelow remaining for most of the day in his library, where he dined at noon with Mrs. Tracy, the other members of the family eating the birthday dinner in the dining room."

The New York Times, December 20, 1911 (copyright expired)

Four days later, the newspaper reported, "John Bigelow, venerable man of letters, diplomatist, and lawyer, died yesterday morning at his home...The bed in which he died was the same old-fashioned four poster in which his wife died thirty years ago."

Around 1902, Flora divorced Charles Stewart Dodge and in 1905 married Lionel Guest, the co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Montreal.  The couple had homes in Montreal and London.  Like many American socialites, Flora had ambitions for her daughter, Lucy, to marry a nobleman.  Lucy, however, had other ideas.  On April 24, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Among the passengers who arrived on the White Star liner Oceanic last night was Miss Lucy Dodge, daughter of Mrs. Lionel Guest, who, having tired of society life in London has come back to live with her aunt, Miss Bigelow, at 21 Gramercy Park."  The article mentioned, "Miss Dodge is a tall and slender blonde, with large blue eyes, and is about 21 years old."

Lucy Dodge had not merely "tired of society life in London."  The following year, The Evening World reported she had not fled London "to escape the merries of a social season...but to prevent the breaking by her mother and stepfather of a secret engagement to Mr. [Walter T.] Rosen."  Lucy had sneaked away from the Guests' London home.  After Scotland Yard found her "living under an assumed name...preparing for a stage career," she escaped to New York and the Bigelow residence.  She was still living with her aunts on July 16, 1914 when The Evening World titled an article, "Lucy Dodge To Wed New York Banker Despite Parents."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The three sisters lived on in the home they had known since 1880.  On March 14, 1921 Annie Bigelow Harding died at the age of 53.  

Grace Bigelow, who never married, traveled extensively. On October 15, 1932, The New York Times titled an article, "Miss Grace Bigelow Dies At Sea At 80."  It noted, "The residence of Miss Bigelow in Gramercy Park is the house in which her father lived for so many years."  Jennie, who would survive until 1956, moved permanently to Highland Falls.  

The Gramercy Park house became home to the National Musical Benefit Society, which gave recitals in the "Main Salon," until May 1946 when the New York Sun reported that the house was sold, "under the will of Grace Bigelow."

image via forrent.com

A renovation completed in 1956 stripped the brownstone, replacing it with a brick mid-century Modern facade.  There were now four apartments per floor.  While the architecture of the venerable house is now unremarkable, its history is anything but.

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Horace Ginsbern's 1941 66 West 88th Street

 

photo by Lowell Cochrane

On May 13, 1940, seven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor would pull America into World War II, The New York Times reported that the Cedot Realty Corporation had purchased "the five parcels at 62 to 70 West Eighty-eighth Street," saying that the plot "has been assembled for an apartment house."

The firm hired Horace Ginsbern to design the structure.  Born in 1902, he was the principal in the architectural firm of Horace Ginsbern & Associates and president of the Horace Realty Company, Inc.  He began designing and building apartment buildings when he was 29 years old, beginning with the Park Plaza Apartments--the first of the Art Deco apartment buildings in the Bronx.

Ginsbern's design for 66 West 88th Street would gravitate more to the "modernistic."  He forwent stepped Art Deco parapets and polychromed doors for a nearly utilitarian plan that anticipated mid-century modern architecture.  A light court separated the building into two masses, its sparse decoration limited to fenestration and the granite-paneled entrance.

Construction was completed in the fall of 1941 and the building filled with professional tenants, like Dr. Manfred Hess, who had received his medical degree in Milan in 1934; and Samuel L. Greitzer, his wife Ethel, and their son Gerald.

Born in Russia on August 10, 1905, Greitzer was brought to America at the age of one.  He graduated from City College of New York in 1927 and later earned his Ph.D. from Yeshiva University.  Greitzer's occupation in 1955 was listed as "mathematics teacher, Yeshiva University and Bronx High School of Science," but that greatly understated his stature in the mathematical community.

Samuel L. Greitzer, from the collection of Rutgers University

Samuel L. Grietzer would go on to teach at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Columbia University and Rutgers University.  Among the books he wrote or co-authored was Geometry Revisited.  He led the U.S. team at the first International Mathematical Olympiads in 1959, and would continued in that role for a decade.  Grietzer was internationally recognized within the mathematics community.

Sisters Hulda Ernestine Macarthy and Osceola Marie Adams shared an apartment by the early 1970s.  Both had fascinating careers and lives.  Natives of Albany, Georgia, Hulda was born on October 7, 1888, and Osceola was born on June 13, 1890.

The girls' father, Charles Hannibal Macarthy, was a trustee of the Colored Academy in Albany, where they received their early education.  In 1903, Hulda entered the Albany Normal School, graduating in 1907.  An accomplished pianist, she was accepted at Fisk University where she majored in music.  After graduation she studied piano at Oberlin College.

For some reason, the musician turned to nursing.  In 1923 she entered nurses' training at St. Louis City Hospital.  She would spend 35 years with the Homer G. Phillips Hospital, rising to Assistant Superintendent of Nurses, notably becoming its first Black nursing instructor.  Osceola attended her Appreciation Banquet on March 17, 1962.

At the time, Hulda's eyesight was failing.  It would worsen to the point of near blindness.  She moved to New York and Osceola's apartment at 66 West 88th Street.  Her condition continued to worsen and she suffered hearing loss and confusion (most likely early dementia), necessitating Osceola's handling of her affairs.  Hulda died in November 1976 at the age of 88.

Like her sister, Osceola attended Fisk University and then Howard University.  While there, she was among 22 founding members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, which would grow to be the largest Black women's organization in the world.  She married the head of Howard University's Chemistry department, Numa Adams, in 1915.

While her husband pursued a career in medicine, Osceola worked as a newspaper columnist, a substitute probation officer and fashion designer for a department store--all the while doing graduate work at the University of Chicago.

In 1929, Numa Adams was appointed the dean of the Howard University Medical School, the first Black dean of any American medical school.  He died on August 29, 1940.  By then, it appears that he and Osceola had separated.  She was living in New York City, having earned her Master's degree in drama in 1936, taking the stage name of Osceola Archer.  

She debuted in Between Two Worlds at the Belasco Theatre in October 1934 playing Rose Henneford, a maid.  Darlene Clark Hine wrote in the 1994 Black Women in America, "Henneford trained as a librarian, was married to a doctor whose career was hurt by discrimination.  The role was not terribly far from Archer's own life."

In 1934, Osceola Archer played in Archibald MacLeish's Panic with Orson Wells and Rose McClendon.  It was choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Virgil Thomson.  She was on tour with The Emperor Jones when her husband died.  

Osceola Adams (original source unknown)

In 1940 Osceola became acting coach and director of the American Negro Theater in Harlem.  Among her students were unknown young actors Ossie Davis, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.  In his autobiography My Song: A Memoir, Belafonte recalls that after Poitier's initial three month trial period...

the ANT's director, Osceola Archer, was disinclined to give him another trial period.  Sidney told me he felt Osceola was racist.  She was very Indian-looking, with long, black thick hair and rather light skin.  Sidney felt strongly that she liked me more than him because my skin was quite a bit lighter than his.  I never saw any evidence of this, and thought Sidney was just oversensitive and vulnerable.

In 1946, Osceola was made resident director of the Putnam County Playhouse, a post she would retain for a decade.  She continued to work in the theater, radio, commercials and television dramas.  A member of the Actor's Equity Committee on Minority Affairs, she fought racial discrimination for decades.  She received an award from the U.S.O. for distinguished service during World War II, and from the mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young, in 1974 for her contributions to American theater.  

On November 24, 1983, The New York Times announced, "Osceola Adams, an actress and teacher of dramatic arts...who also was a founder of the nation's largest black fraternal organization, died in her Upper West Side home Sunday.  She was 93 years old."

photo by Lowell Cochrane

Surprisingly, Horace Ginsbern's casement windows survive.  Resultantly, his 83-year-old building looks almost exactly as it did when the first tenants moved in in September 1941.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for requesting this post

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H. I. Feldman's 1954 4 East 89th Street

 

In 1929, the five-story, 94-foot-wide mansion owned by Edward Thaw (the half-brother of millionaire Harry K. Thaw who murdered Stanford White) was demolished.  The plot sat empty for nearly two decades before the architectural firm of Eggers & Higgins filed plans in 1946 for a 13-story-and-penthouse apartment building at 4-10 East 89th Street for the Fifth Avenue & 89th Street Corp.  The project stalled, however, and four years later the plot was sold to the Noarpark Realty Corp., which hired architect H. I. Feldman to tweak the plans.  He reworked them again in 1953 when the vacant property was sold to the Retor Building Corp.  

What were most likely subtle refinements to the Eggers & Higgins design reflected the move from Art Moderne to mid-century Modern taste.  The rounded forms of the former style seen in balcony railings, for instance, were now rigidly geometric.  Feldman designed two mirror-image sections faced in beige brick atop a one-story base.  The recessed section between the two contained concrete balconies flanked by chamfered casement windows.  The setbacks at the topmost floors provided balconies at the sides and to the penthouse level.  Additional balconies faced west and south, looking over Frank Lloyd Wright's masterful Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum towards Central Park.

The balconies at the side and rear can be seen in this photo of the Guggenheim under construction in 1957.  photo by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc. from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The 80 apartments became home to professionals like attorney Meyer Dvorkin and his educator wife Etta Weissberg.  Etta had graduated from Hunter College and the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.  She helped organize the High School of Music and Art where she taught foreign languages before becoming its dean.  She retired in 1962.

What no resident could have imagined--an 11-story addition to the Guggenheim Museum--was announced in 1985.  On February 19, The New York Times explained, "The addition, which would cost $12 million, would rise as a slab behind the northern half of the present museum building, with a street entrance on East 89th Street."  Filling the gap between the Wright's unique structure and 4 East 89th Street, the proposed annex would nestle up to the apartment building leaving a gap of one or two inches.

Architectural critic and author Paul Goldberger had praised the plan in The New York Times four days earlier.  He said it would "rise as a backdrop behind the main building" and "hide from sight the awkward side elevation of the apartment house at 4 East 89th Street."  Others lamented that futzing with Frank Lloyd Wright's design was like "improving" a Mondrian within the collection.

Jack Piccolo's terrace overlooked the museum.  On June 25, 1992, Newsday journalist Patricia Volk remarked, "He used to stand out on his terrace and look clear over the museum into the park.  He used to sip a glass of wine, watching the sun sink behind the reservoir.  Now he stares at a wall."

The new structure nestled up to 4 East 89th Street.

Piccolo told Volk he did not think the annex would ever actually be built.  "I always thought there'd be a miracle, that someone would come to their senses and say, 'This is crazy.'"  But it was built and he and 10 other families lost their views.  "Now my terrace butts right up against the new addition," he said.  "I go out there, put my hand out, and touch it."

Joan Walton Sheanshang was a resident when construction of the Guggenheim annex began.  The 46-year-old boarded Pan Am Flight 103 in London on December 21, 1988.  Tragically, she would never make it home.  Around 7:00, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew. 

Psychiatrist Robert Howard Willis lived in Tenafly, New Jersey and practiced from an office on the ground floor of 4 East 89th Street.  During sessions in 1989, a patient innocently mentioned her husband's banking dealings, including "a possible deal in which Shearson, Loeb Rhodes would invest $1 billion in the BankAmerica if Sanford I. Weill...became head of BankAmerica," according to The New York Times.  Willis acted on the unintentional tip and turned a profit in BankAmerica Corporation stock.

His good luck was short lived however.  On July 26, 1989, he was charged with using inside information to make the deal.  "He was charged with 23 counts of securities fraud and 23 counts of mail fraud," reported The Times.

At some point the windows of 4 East 89th Street were replaced.  The new examples sympathetically followed H. I. Feldman's original tripartite design.  Other than that and the Guggenheim Museum's annex that blocked off the building's western views, little has outwardly changed to the 70-year-old building.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for requesting this post

photographs by the author

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Emery Roth & Sons' 1950 40 Park Avenue

 

As the Great Depression waned, in 1938 Samuel Rudin's Northwest Realty Corporation hired the architectural firm of Emery Roth & Sons to design a 19-story-and-penthouse apartment building at 294-295 Central Park West.  Eleven years later, the two firms were working together again, this time on an 18-story-and-penthouse apartment building on the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 36th Street.

Completed in 1950, Emery Roth and Sons' Mid-Century-Modern design relied heavily on balconies for visual interest.  Above the 14th floor, the beige brick facade erupted into a series of setbacks and angles that provided outdoor space and stunning views. 

Among the initial residents were Dr. Charles G. McCormick and his wife, the former Selma Hansen.  Dr. McCormick was a member of the American Group Psychotherapy Association and in 1951 was slated to be editor of The International Journal of Group Psychotherapy.  (He withdrew his name, "finding himself unable to undertake the task," according to the periodical in October 1971.)

Selma McCormick was an instructor in the Dale Carnegie schools.  She died in the couple's apartment on March 26, 1961 at the age of 38. 

There was little scandal or intrigue among the white collar residents of 40 Park Avenue.  But that changed on October 28, 1970 when resident stockbroker Fred Hesse was indicted with seven others who "allegedly engineered a stock swindle that victimized brokerage houses and individuals across the country," as reported by The New York Times.  The newspaper noted, "It was the second such combined operation since the Joint Strike Force on Organized Crime was organized here in July, 1969."

More typical of the residents was Harry Prager, an insurance broker since 1927.  A widower, he was the past president and supreme master of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, founded at New York University in 1913.

Mrs. William H. Stockton's name appeared in newspapers for her work with organizations like the World Council of Christian Education and the Haarlem Philharmonic Society.  When, for instance, a benefit card party for the Haarlem Philharmonic Society was held in the Waldorf-Astoria on February 14, 1973, The New York Times reported that tickets could be obtained from Mrs. Stockton here.

A somewhat colorful resident was Colonel James V. Demarest, who lived here with his wife, the former Mary Holland.  Born in 1890, the advertising man had served in both World Wars.  After serving overseas in World War I, he became president of the Advertising Men's Post of the New York State American Legion.  He was still president of the organization in 1952 when it was responsible for arranging the national convention in New York City.

With America's entry into World War II, Demarest was recalled to duty.  He served throughout the war in the Quartermaster Corps as executive officer of the New York purchasing office.  The New York Times noted, "when he retired from the Army in 1949, [he returned] to advertising and public relations."  Demarest died on March 7, 1976 at the age of 86.

In 1996, 40 Park Avenue was added to the Landmarks Preservation Commission's long list of properties considered for individual landmark designation (where it presumably still sits).  After 74 years, the Rudin organization still owns and manages the striking midcentury building.

photographs by the author

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