The Lost "Mott Street Barracks" - 308-318 Mott Street

When famous reformer Jacob A. Riis took this photograph, the owner had installed an impressive cornice and flower boxes to disguise the squalid conditions inside.  How The Other Half Lives, 1901 (copyright expired)

Born in Ireland, stonemason Martin Walsh lived on Mott Street between Bleecker and Houston Streets in the 1850's, when he began construction on six tenement buildings on the same block, Nos. 308 through 318.  There were two three-room apartments per floor.  One room had a window, the other two did not.  Just five feet away in the rear was a second, shorter building.  The closeness of the two structures limited the light and air within the rear rooms.  To make conditions worse, there was no plumbing and all tenants emptied their waste in latrines in the cellar.

Reformer Jacob A. Riis included a sketch of the "yard" in his 1892 The Children of the Poor (copyright expired)

Within a decade of the buildings' completion they had jointly earned the reputation as one of the worst tenements in the city.  Called The Barracks, the complex was not only the scene of suffering and and disease; but within its walls crime, poverty and violence festered.

Living here in 1863 was Peter Gannon, his wife, Ann, and their son, James, whose age was estimated by The New York Times as "between eight and nine years."  Like many of his neighbors, Gannon drank heavily and physically abused his wife, especially when he was drunk.

Around 6:00 on the evening of March 13 Gannon came home intoxicated.  Apparently unprovoked, he began kicking Ann violently.  The woman crawled into a corner where he kicked her again.  James sat beside her for a while, then despite his young age, realized his mother was in serious trouble.  He ran down the street to notify his uncle, Ann's brother, that she was dying.  While he was gone Peter kicked Ann two more times--once in the back and again in the stomach.

Seeing Ann's condition, the brother left to find a policeman.  In his absence Gannon fled, telling his son to say he had simply gone to buy milk.  According to James later, he also warned him "not to say he saw him kick his mother."

According to The New York Times, at the station house Gannon pinched James on the hand "and told him not to tell anything about it."  The little boy had more courage than his father gave him credit for.  Before the coroner's jury he told of Gannon's brutal history.  "Witness further testified that his father had frequently beaten his mother, sometimes with a stick, sometimes with his hands, and sometimes he would kicker her; at one time he beat her with a bench upon her head," reported The Times.  Gannon was convicted of murder.

So notorious was the tenement that on June 1, 1877 The New York Times entitled one article "The 'Barracks' Again."  The article said "A fight took place last night in the building known as the 'Barracks,' No. 310 Mott street, between two Italians named Jose Cario and Carl Mariana, during which Cario drew a knife and stabbed Mariana three times in the back."

Children born in The Barracks had little chance of rising about their circumstances.  They learned to make a living by theft, con games and other crimes.  Among them was Blanche Douglass.  As soon as she was old enough she turned to prostitution.   In the summer of 1881 two well-to-do young cousins from New Haven, Connecticut, James and Walter Malley, came to the city  for less than respectable reasons.  The New York Telegram later said "Blanche Douglas was a dissolute woman, well known in the New York Tenderloin" and that "the Malley boys had made her acquaintance while on one of their roystering trips to the metropolis."

The Malleys "were both young society men," said the article, "Walter the son of a wealthy dry goods merchant."  The three commenced an unpredictable friendship and Blanche accompanied the men back to New Haven.  She proved to be a bad influence.

At some point they lured Jennie Cramer, the 19-year old daughter of an affluent cigar manufacturer, into their web. Blanche and Walter had become romantically--or at least sexually--involved and Jennie was now wooed by James.   But Blanche had other plans.

As dawn broke on August 4 a few men on a pier on the Long Island Sound discovered the body of a woman face down in the water.  The New York Telegram reported "The body was dressed in white and a hat with ostrich feathers was still upon the head."  It was Jennie Cramer.

An investigation soon pointed to Blanche and the Malley boys.  The three were arrested and a month-long trial ensued.  But Blanche had a overwhelming ability to charm men and from the beginning she received preferential treatment.  The New York Times reported on August 30 "There has been to-day almost a popular outcry against the authorities because this Blanche Douglass has not been sent to jail instead of being pampered at the private residence of Sheriff Peck."  And despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence, all three were acquitted.

It was not the last newspaper readers would hear of Blanche Douglass.  Back in New York she returned to the Barracks where a "tough" named Edward Hanley saw an opportunity.  The 28-year old was described by The Sun as "Blanche Douglass's unprofitable follower for years."  He stole love letters written by Walter Malley from Blanche's trunk and set out to blackmail him.

Then on April 1, 1885 The Evening Telegram reported that a young Philadelphia man, Harry Risbard, had spent time in the room of a woman who called herself Johanna Ryan.  When he got back to his hotel he realized he had been robbed of a diamond scarf pin, his pocketbook, and his gold watch.   He took a policeman back to the room where it happened.  "Policeman Shields at once recognized the stylish Johanna as the notorious Blanche Douglass, considered by the police the most skillful pickpocket and confidence woman in New York," said the article.

The newspaper wondered if the charges would stick.  "Blanche has a reputation of the very worst, and, although arrested almost numberless times for offences of this character, has managed to elude the law in every case...She was mixed up in the Fitpatrick-Norton shooting cast not long ago.  Both of the men were policemen and in love with 'Big Blanche,' as she is sometimes called."  That incident ended in Norton being killed and Fitpatrick going to prison.

John J. McCarthy, known on the street as Dolly McCarthy, had a reputation equal to that of Blanche.  On the evening of December 21, 1881 he was arrested for the stabbing murder of Pasquale Lavarino on the sidewalk just outside The Barracks.  The man had been in this country only three days.  In the fight his brother, Antonio, and cousin, Pasquale, were "dangerously cut," according to the Albany Evening Journal.

McCarthy, who was just 23-years old at the time, confessed to using a butcher knife to kill the immigrant man.  He was sent to prison for twelve years.  But seven years into his sentence new evidence came to light when John Luby made a deathbed confession.  The Evening Journal explained "McCarthy and Luby were intimate friends, and the former felt bound not to expose Luby after Luby had attempted to defend him and went to prison in Luby's stead."

He would be back, however.  In 1889, within a year of his release, he murdered another man.  The Evening Post recounted that "in a race war between the Irish and Italians in the Mott Street barracks...he stabbed four or five Italians, killing one."  The warring gangs had been fighting for some time when McCarthy became aware of it.  "It was the Italians who first drew knives," said the article, "but McCarthy ran out of the barracks to a grocery store, seized a cheese-knife, and coming back, outdid the Italians with his long weapon which he swung more like a club than a stiletto.  He was sentenced to Sing Sing for four years for that."

In the meantime, despite it's location within view of the Board of Health offices attached to the Police Headquarters building, The Barracks continued as perhaps the worst tenement in the city.  The 1888 census showed 360 tenants, of which 40 were infants.

It served as an example for a Massachusetts inspector in the Report of the Chief of the Massachusetts District Police in 1891.  He said "Perhaps no clearer illustration of the gross evils of the system can be given than a brief description of what is locally known as the Mott Street Barracks."  He called the narrow space between the front and rear buildings where children played "filthy in the extreme" and said "It is stated that in summer crowds of inmates camp out on the flat roofs.  Naked children make a playground of the halls and stairways, or huddle in the dirt outside.  The Barracks furnish a convenient harbor for thieves and beggars."

The roof supplied the only real source of sunlight and fresh air.  photo by Jacob A. Riis, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

A "free doctor" made a visit to one apartment in The Barracks on June 4, 1894 and The Evening World published his report, which said in part:

The husband and father out of work.  Wife and mother in bed in the last stage of consumption and will soon pass away.  Two little boys, poorly clad, half starved and suffering with bronchitis, which will ere long be consumption.  Nothing in the house to eat.  Nearly all the furniture gone.  No fuel to burn in the rickety little stove.

Reformer Jacob Riis, in his 1892 The Children of the Poor, wrote "The closets [i.e., privies] of all the buildings are in the cellar of the rear houses and open upon this 'yard,' where it is always dark and damp as in a dungeon.  Its foul stenches reach even the top floor."  He pointed out that the death rate among babies here was 32.5 percent--nearly one in three.

Having been hit with 49 violations by the Board of Health, in 1890 the owner hired architects Walgrove & Israels to put lipstick on the pig.  The Lake George News said "the old place was actually scrubbed and painted and a glittering new cornice put on, with a glaring tin front containing '1890' in figures a foot long.  But just the same the old structure is as foul as it was forty years ago and so full of Italians that it literally overflows, for in hot weather they sleep on the sidewalks and on the roof."

The article brought up a familiar figure again.  "In that structure the once noted Blanche Douglass was reared...Blanche and an old blind beggar who called her his daughter long occupied one of the dark little rear rooms, and in the same house she was found by the police after the tragedy in company with Hanley, the tough who was concocting a great blackmailing scheme, of which the Malley boys were to be the victims."

At the time rents ranged from $6 per month on the dark, lower floors, and $9 "up where the windows let in a little light," according to a newspaper.  The more expensive rooms cost the tenants the equivalent of $265 a month today.

On September 17, 1896 the Health Department sent a letter to Petro Rosa informing him that it "desires to acquire title to the rear building."  The politely worded correspondence was more of an order than a request.  It went on to say the Department "hereby offers to you for your interest of said buildings the sum of One ($1) Dollar, in consideration of the conveyance." 

On December 31 that year the back buildings were "ordered vacated and condemned by the Board of Health as unfit for human habitation."  The hope was that when the structures were razed the influx of sunlight and air would greatly improve conditions in the main buildings.  Even Jacob A. Riis was somewhat mollified.  In an article in the June 1900 issue of The American Monthly Review of Reviews he said "Then came the wreckers, and tore down the rear houses.  Where they stood the sun shines in now, and the children play."

The Mott Street Barracks was demolished in 1901--but not before Blanche Douglass appeared in newspapers one more time.  The Evening Telegram printed a startling article on October 21 reporting "Walter Malley, principal of the most noted murder trial in New England, has married Blanche Douglass, who shared in the trial."  The New Haven Evening Journal added "Malley is a millionaire bachelor, and the fact that he never married has been regarded as the result of the notoriety gained in the Jennie Cramer murder trial...He is the proprietor of the largest department store of this city."

The Mott Street Barracks was replaced by a modern apartment building which survives.

photo via streeteasy.com

The Lost Federal Relic at No. 85 Mott Street

By March 13, 1939, when this photo was taken, the roof had been raised and Morris Slavin's clothing store occupied the ground floor.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As early as 1776, Mott Street appeared on maps meandering northward from Worth Street.  Named for the prominent Mott family, comfortable brick-fronted homes began appearing along it shortly afterward.  One of these, No. 85 Mott Street, sat on the southwest corner of Canal Street.

The commodious house represented the newer Federal architecture while holding on to some of the traditional Georgian elements.  Two and a half stories tall, its openings featured splayed stone lintels with prominent keystones.  Tidy dormers poked through the peaked roof.  Between the paired chimneys of the Canal Street side, a handsome arched window was flanked by two quarter-round openings.  The corner location meant that the interiors of the upscale home were flooded with extra sunlight.

The Federal-style house next door survived in 1922 as well.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

But the quiet tone of the neighborhood did not last long.  By the 1820s the private residences were being converted to taverns, shops and boarding houses.  By the time that the Bull family purchased No. 85 and its two neighboring houses in 1836 it was already home to at least three families.  In 1837 city directories listed Charles Smith, a seafarer, living here along with Rosanna Gannon, “widow of Denis,” and dressmaker Eliza Marks.

Five years later John H. Burns had moved in.  A blacksmith and “gas engineer,” his skills would have been in high demand as the technology of street lamps illuminated by gas spread from England to New York.  Burns, whose business was located at No. 38 S. William Street, would remain in the house at least until 1847. 

Along with John Burns, A. D. Cohen, a printer’s apprentice, was living here in 1842.  High-quality early Victorian books regularly included inside cover pages decorated with faux marble or swirling colored patterns.  Cohen received recognition that year for “a good specimen of graining.”

The blue-collar professions of the residents were evident in the tenant list in 1845.  Among those living here were Patrick Farmer, a carpenter who, like Burns, would stay until 1847; grocer James Reagen whose store was at No. 133 Walker Street; and Eliza A. Scudder.  She owned a “thread and needles” shop at No. 333 Grand Street.

Boarders came and went rapidly.  In 1852 there was an entirely new list of residents:  Mary Lyseght, seamstress; Denis Santry, “polisher;” tailor Samuel Bloominghal; and Wolfe Latts, an upholsterer.

Unlike wealthy New Yorkers who left the stifling city for summer resorts and estates; the boarders in No. 85 Mott Street suffered through the heat.  The mid-Victorian clothing, both male and female, only added to the discomfort.   James O’Brien lived here in 1863.  He nearly made it home on the scorching afternoon of August 22 before succumbing to the heat.  Two days later The New York Times reported “James O’Brien, aged 50 years, fell dead at the corner of Canal and Mott streets, on Saturday afternoon.”

By the early 1870s the ground floor of the house was converted for commercial purposes.  A cast iron store front wrapped around along the Canal Street side.  It was divided into two spaces; a shop on Mott Street and a tavern around the corner at No. 184 Canal Street.

The “lager beer saloon,” as described by The New York Times, was run by Moses Sands, known familiarly as “Mose” to his patrons.   In September 1874 John Griffin broke into the saloon “for felonious purposes.”  He was caught and, held on $2,000 bail, had to answer to Justice Flammer on the morning of September 20.  It did not go well for Griffin.

Like many saloon keepers at the time, Moses Sands was somewhat shady himself.  On August 4, 1879 The Times mentioned “Moses Sands…keeps a liquor store, and was arrested some time ago, charged with having stolen property in his possession.”

In the meantime the Mott Street shop was doing a more respectable business.  Abram and Herman Spektorsky operated A. Spektorsky & Son here.  Feather dealers, they manufactured a variety of items like their popular feather duster, a household necessity.

As the turn of the century neared, the shop became home to Isaac Werkman’s coat factory.  He employed eight workers, seven males and 1 female; several of which were minors.  A State inspection in 1894 noted that Werkman gave his under-age workers Saturdays off; but that they worked 11 hours every Sunday and 66 hours during the week.

By now the area was part of what newspapers termed the “Italian district.”   The upper floors of No. 85 filled with Italian immigrants.  In 1893 one newcomer to America used the address to get his citizenship papers on October 28—but it turned out he was a fraud.

Michael Marrone “could not be found at that address,” reported the Evening World on March 27, 1894.  The newspaper was doing an investigation into a rash of “bogus papers” during the flood of immigrants.  Its reporter checked in with Isaac Werkman, who said he “has been in business on the first floor for years” and “he had never heard of a man by that name, although he mentioned several Italians who had names somewhat similar.”  The newspaper added, “In the corner saloon, Marrone never was heard of.”

Among those who actually did live in the house in 1899 were Dominic Visconti and Peter Addeo, both laborers, and Addeo’s two sons John, 17-years old, and 23-year old Salvator.  Both sons were barbers.  Another resident Joe Bonavanduro was married in the house on November 26, 1899 to Patsy Andego.

What should have been a joyous event turned horribly violent and tragic.

The Sun reported “There was a large gathering in the house to see the wedding, and the festivities went along merrily till Visconti found fault with the music.”  The music—played on two mandolins and a guitar--was provided by the Addeo brothers and another barber, Salvator Scalponi, who lived at No. 40 Mulberry Street.  Peter Addeo resented Visconti’s imputation that his sons were not accomplished players “and hot words passed.”

Women in the room jumped between the two fuming Italians and temporarily calmed the situation.  The wedding went on and the couple was married.  While the guests pressed around them to give their well wishes, the simmering tempers of the two men flared again “because Addeo and Visconti each wanted to be the first in congratulating the bride.”

The newspaper reported “They shoved each other and at that the Addeo boys put up their instruments in readiness for trouble, as did Scalponi, whom honor bound to see his friends on top in the scrap that was coming.”

The “scrap” would prove deadly.  As Addeo and Visconti came to blows, the boys joined in, beating Visconti first with sticks, then attacking with knives. 

On the street Detectives Finley, Touwsma and Milhouse were on the way to the Hudson Street Hospital with the victim of a different stabbing and a prisoner when they heard the screams and shouts from upstairs.  They rushed into the room to find Dominic Visconti dying, stabbed five times in the chest.

He lived long enough to tell the police “that all of the three Addeos and Scalponi had used knives on him.”

At some point the dormers were removed and the roof raised to a full floor.  In the early decades of the 20^th century the former saloon became a tailor shop and the Mott Street shop became home to G.Slavin’s Canal Clothing Exchange.

By 1937 the store was operated by Morris Slavin who resolutely butted heads with other clothiers in the neighborhood that year.  For over a century clothing retailers used the “puller-in” to garner business.  The employee would stand on the sidewalk and persuade passersby to enter the store.

The handsome splayed lintels are evident in this photograph.  When it was taken the increasing Chinese population in the area is evident in the dual language Neon Sign single sign.  from the collection of the http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/[Corner%20of%20Mott%20and%20Canal%20Streets.]-2F3XC5IXJ4C7.html

But modern shopkeepers now denounced the practice as tawdry and “a detriment to trade.”  When representatives from 28 other clothiers in the neighborhood pleaded with Slavin to do away with his puller-in, he refused.  So the East Side Merchants Association pressured him by hiring 21-year old Edward Kritzer to picket the Canal Clothing Exchange.

Behind Slavin's store, in the former saloon section, was the tailor shop of S. Kaplan.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Times reported that Kritzer carried “a sign appealing to passersby not to patronize Slavin’s store because Slavin was ‘unfair to the retail clothing business in the vicinity.’”  Unwilling to bend, Slavin filed a formal complain against Kritzer for disorderly conduct and interfering with his business.

Perhaps because of the ugly publicity (and the picket sign) Morris Slavin declared bankruptcy a few months later, in 1938. 

The Mott and Canal Street neighborhood, once an respectable residential enclave, then an Italian tenement district, was now becoming New York City’s Chinatown.  On March 11, 1939 The New York Times announced that George Bull and Albert W. Maclay had sold No. 85 and the two old houses next door after ownership of more than a century.

The 1939 sale included the two houses above (photographed by P. L. Sperr on September 22, 1933) and the vacant lot behind No. 85.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

“Acquired by the sellers in 1836…the buildings, said to have been erected about 150 years ago, will be razed starting on Monday and a two-story store and office building erected on the site,” reported the article.

That small building survived until 1950 when it was replaced by No. 83-85 Mott Street, a pagoda-imitating structure which served as headquarters of the On Leong Tong, once one of Chinatown’s most notorious and violent gangs.  It now houses the Chinese Merchants Association.

The John Harrison House -- No. 201 Mott Street

In 1837 John Harrison, a “carter,” was leasing the two-and-a-half story house at No. 201 Mott Street.  The frame building was faced in Flemish bond red brick and simply trimmed in brownstone.  An unassuming doorway, three steps above the sidewalk, testified to the working-class status of its occupants.

In February that year Harrison had joined a long list of neighbors who signed a petition to the mayor protesting the proposed extension of Centre Street from Broome to Houston Streets.  The petition claimed, in part, that the extension would traverse “at an almost acute angle, five of the most extensive blocks in that part of the city’ destroying, mutilating, and injuring every street, lot, and building in its course.”

The little Mott Street house must have been a bit crowded.  Along with Harrison’s wife and three sons, Thomas, James and George, he rented a room to Michael Dunn, a grocer.  The turnover of boarders was sometimes rapid.  In 1841 another carter, Peter Hanley, lived here and a year later grocer John A. Colohan had moved in.  A family of three, the Slevins, apparently crammed into another room around this time.

Two of the Harrison boys would not follow their father’s cartman occupation.  They learned metal working and in 1843 both received awards from the American Institute.  Thomas won for “the best copper tea kettle” and George for “a miniature tea kettle.”  James chose a more blue-collar existence.  In 1846 he was listed in directories as “laborer.”

The Harrison family was no longer listed at No. 201 Mott Street after 1847.  But the home continued to be filled with hardworking tradesmen.  In 1849 carpenter David Leal, whose shop was at No. 77 Reade Street, was here; and in 1852 it was home to John D. Palmer, a shoemaker; printer James Tubbs; and police officer Daniel Ebbets.

After living here for around five years, on the morning of New Year’s Eve, 1857 John Palmer died in the house at the age of 59.  His obituary noted he had suffered “a long and painful illness.”  His funeral was held here on Sunday morning, January 4 at 1:00.

The Slevin family had lived in the house since at least since 1842, when the Harrisons were still here.  Daughter Annie taught in the Girls’ Department at School No. 21 on Marion Street, between Spring and Prince Streets.  The Slevins would remain at No. 201 for more than three decades.

Michael Slevin, it appears, enjoyed his drink.  He was heading home “at an early hour” on May 31, 1871 when he was attacked by John Harrigan who “struck him on the head with a stone, inflicting a severe but not dangerous wound.”  After striking Slevin with the rock, Harrigan ran away.

Michael presented an embarrassment to his politician brother James J. Slevin.  When Michael was arrested on Sunday, August 11, 1878, charged with intoxication and disorderly conduct, newspapers noted that he was “brother of Alderman Slevin.”

The Times went further, noting that Officer Ryan found Slevin on Mott Street “on Saturday night, in a state of intoxication, and acting very disorderly.  When he ordered him away, Slevin became very abusive and used insulting language.”   When Ryan and another officer attempted to arrest him, Slevin called Ryan “a sucker” and resisted arrest.

In 1877 the house was owned by Henry Fitzpatrick and his wife Margaret.   The crowded conditions were somewhat relieved when, in August 1886, the Fitzpatricks spent $1,200 to raise the attic to a full floor and add an “iron cornice.”  Although the contractors, Wunnenberg & Johnson, made no attempt to match the expensive Flemish bond brickwork; their addition was only slightly noticeable.    The fashionable Italianate cornice updated the old building.

The clapboard side can be glimpsed along what was a service alley or horse walk.

Margaret Fitzpatrick was a native of County Cavan, Ireland.  By the time of her death in the house on Thursday, June 28, 1888 Henry had already died.  The funeral for the 71-year old widow was held in the house on Sunday, July 1.

The Fitzpatricks' daughter retained possession of No. 201 Mott Street through the turn of the century.  When she advertised it on June 1, 1902, the property was described as a “small house and lot.”  It remained on the market until Spring 1903 when Catherine A. McGill purchased what the sales report called “an old building.”

While the Fizpatrick tenants had been mostly Irish immigrants, the area was now primarily Italian.  Among Catherine McGill’s residents was the Motta family.

Nicola Motta was riding in a “horse and buggy” on Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, on the night of April 10, 1904 with Nicola Marconi.   Suddenly the carriage “was struck at full speed” by an automobile.  The New-York Tribune reported that the car, containing William A. Stark and William J. Lanley, both of Brooklyn, was coming from Coney Island.

The newspaper said the carriage “was demolished, and the forelegs of the horse were broken.  Marconi was thrown to the ground and badly bruised, but was not seriously injured.  Matta [sic], in the fall, struck his head on a tree.”

“The injured man was taken to the Kings County Hospital, where it was said he would probably die.”  Later The New York Times confirmed Motta’s skull was fractured and reported that “The police learned that the buggy was on the wrong side of the road.  No arrests were made.”

The Motta sons remained on in the Mott Street house.  Salvatore Motta used the address as late as 1910 for the Motta General Contracting Co.; and Nicholas Motta conducted his real estate business here through 1918.

Not only the house at No. 201 Mott Street but the entire neighborhood around it suffered neglect throughout the next decades.  In 1941 the Department of Buildings deemed the building unsafe.

But as the Nolita neighborhood was discovered as the 20^th century became the 21^st, Mott Street saw the arrival of cafes and trendy shops.  When a new luxury apartment building was constructed next door at No 199 the little house at No. 201 received a façade restoration.   The last house on the block, it is a relic of the earliest days of Mott Street when hard-working laborers shared close quarters.

photographs by the author

Blacksmiths, Butchers and Piano Music -- No. 225 Mott Street

In the 1860s entrepreneurs eyed the three-story stable building at No. 225 Mott Street with interest.  The block was not a glamorous one, indeed; however even here the idea of a slaughter house was too much for neighbors to entertain.  In 1860 Trow’s New York City Directory announced that the application for the business was refused.

The no-nonsense structure had stood on the spot for, probably, at least two decades.  Above the livery stable low-income families rented rooms.   In March 1869 the building’s owner, P. Macnamara, and builder John O’Brien announced their plans to replace it with “a store and dwelling of brick, two stories.” That idea, too, fell through.

When the estate of Henry Manron sold the 25-foot property in December 1886, it was still described as a “three-story tenement and stables.”  William McKenna spent $12,000 for the building—about $311,000 today—and before long horses and vehicles would be gone for good from No. 225 Mott Street.

The street level was converted to shops.  McKenna and his wife took an apartment upstairs and moved his blacksmithing operation into the street level.  Another shop became home to Jacob Friedenthal’s harness making business.  He moved in in 1887. 

Not only was Friedenthal a respected harness maker, he was active in politics.  On October 14 that year the leaders of all the anti-Tammany organizations met to nominate a candidate for the State Assembly.  George Lapp, the Fusion candidate for the district, had withdrawn his name saying that his business would prevent his traveling to Albany.  The following day The New York Times reported “Jacob Friedenthal, harness manufacturer of Mott Street, was nominated in place of Mr. Lapp.”

When Friedenthal moved in (he and his wife also lived in the building), the Teahan family had lived on the top floor for three years.  Charles McCarthy was another boarder.  Those who lived at No. 225 were, as would be expected, immigrants of meager means.

Sharing the first floor with Friedenthal’s harness shop and McKenna’s blacksmith shop in 1904 was a butcher shop.  By now McKenna had obtained the lucrative agreement for shoeing the Fire Department horses from about six fire stations.  The butcher, his wife and mother-in-law lived on the ground floor behind his shop.

The three proprietors would end up in court, sued by the now-widowed Teahan woman that year in a bizarre case regarding piano music. Their complaint started with Jacob Friedenthal, who reported her to the Board of Health as a nuisance some time earlier.

Mrs. Teahan had purchased a piano “on the installment plan” for her two daughters, Flora and Sarah.  Sarah played while Flora sang along.  Mrs. Teahan charged Friedenthal with having threatened to “have the Bureau of Encumbrances come and cart away the piano for rubbish.”

Friedenthal brought witnesses.  The Sun reported on March 2, 1904 “The harness maker, the horseshoer, the butcher, the cigarette maker and the man who punches holes in the metal discs for hurdy gurdies were all in court.”

McKenna emphatically supported Friedenthal.  “It’s tum-te-um-tum-tum all night, Judge, and we can’t sleep, and then it’s tum-te-um-tum-tum all day and you can’t attend to your job.

“Did you ever shoe a horse, your Honor, before you got on the bench?  Well, I didn’t think you did.  But I’ll explain, it ain’t a rag-time job at all and you don’t want a funeral march either.  You don’t want any music at all, or else you want something you can keep time to without losing a stroke of the file.”

The blacksmith opined that “Good Ole Summer Time” would be a good tune to shoe horses to.   He hummed the tune for the judge and drew an imaginary hoof file back and forth along the edge of the judge’s desk to illustrate.  He complained that the Teahan girls repeatedly played the tune “Bedelia” and told the court “That tune ain’t fit to shoo hens to, and it’s raised the devil with me…I can’t stand this game any longer.”

But the butcher’s complaint was the opposite.  He found that “Belelia” “fits in just right after a spurt of fast chopping and gives a man a chance to pat his meat up in a mound for a new start without getting out of tune.”  It was the slower, “Good Ole Summer Time” that he objected to.

Another boarder, an Italian man, was asked by the judge “What tune do you need in your business?”  The Sun reported that he replied “I maka the cigarette. Maka the ladies play ‘Toreador.’ I always humma it at my bench.”

A neighboring bartender got into the act.   He said that the evening before the girls had played a new tune, “Sister Madeline.”  He could clearly hear the music “right up in the Teahan’s flat.”  

“Now, Judge, that tune would drive a man to drink, but he never could mix to it…It spoiled a drink for an old fellow that comes in every night and is very particular.  I’d been mixing cocktails all the evening to the tune of ‘Bedelia’ and wasn’t expecting anything different.  Then the old fellow came in.

“I got his booze and his bitters and the ice into the mixing glass all right, and was kind of movin it up and down slow like, waiting for ‘Bedelia’ to start up again when out came the dirge.”

Jacob Friedenthal felt the court was missing the point.  He “said that he didn’t care what they played days, if they’d shut up the piano nights.”  He told the judge “When my wife wants a night’s sleep she has to go over to Brooklyn and visit my daughter.”

In the meantime Mrs. Teahan said “it was nobody’s business what they played and when they played it.”  She pointed out to the court that she had lived in the building for 20 years.  Friedenthal had been there only 17; so she should not be bossed around by the newcomer.

A frustrated magistrate dismissed the case, sending everyone home “with the advice to get along without a row.”

Later that year Charles McCarthy would find himself in court, charged with voter fraud.  That fall he attempted to register at the 11^th District polling place.  He was challenged and when he signed his affidavit, he wrote “Neil McEnerney,” instead of the name he had given.  He was arrested and held at $1,000 bail.  When he tried to explain himself in court, he said he “forgot” when he wrote “McEnerney.”

Among the blue-collar residents of No. 225 Mott Street in 1907 was sewer worker Thomas Capanoccio.  He was excavating for the new salt water mains on the night of September 3 when tragedy happened.  The New-York Tribune related the episode.

“The night shift of twenty men, under Sylvester Cannon, started to work at 6 o’clock.  The laborers were nearly all Italians.  Suddenly a man who was using a pick doubled up and fell unconscious. Another pitched forward, then another.  Gas from an old sewer above the new tunnel, mingling with powder fumes from a blast caused the trouble.”

The three men were overcome by sewer gas.   They were pulled nearly a block through the massive sewer pipe by co-workers to fresh air.  Then it was noticed that Capanoccio was missing. 

“He was found unconscious in a sewer pipe at Greenwich and Desbrosses streets, and died soon after being pulled out by other workmen,” reported the Tribune.  “With other men he was excavating for the new salt water mains, and the sewer main was accidentally broken on top.  Capanoccio crawled into the sewer, with the result that he was asphyxiated.”

Considering Friedenthal’s political activity, it is perhaps surprising that in 1909 his harness shop was used as a polling place.

                                                                                  

In 1922 William McKenna sold the property.  It was possibly the disappearance of horses on the streets of New York that drove him out.  The Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide used the sale as an opportunity to contemplate the changes in the area.

On August 5, 1922 it wrote “A sale that illustrates the changing character of neighborhoods in this city was that of 225 Mott street.  Owned for 42 years by the seller, the parcel in Mott street and other parcels nearby were populated by the Irish and the Germans when he acquired it.  Then came an influx of Italians who drove out the other nationalities.  Finally he Jews have settled there with no immediately prospects of exit.  In spite of the varying character of residents of the East Side property there is worth more now than it was 42 years ago.”

The buyers were real estate operators Norman S. Reisenfeld and Joseph F. A. O’Donnell.  At the time of the sale the building was assessed at $18,000.   The property was soon sold to an undertaker.  He commissioned Brooklyn architect Ferdinand Gavigano in 1929 to convert the upper floors to a single family home for himself and his family, and the ground floor to a garage.   Department of Buildings documents noted “approval for 9 autos two of which shall be of the funeral hearse type and garage approved only while conducted as accessory to undertaking business.”

Today half of that garage remains while the other—where either horses were once shod, harnesses were made, or chopped meat was patted “into a mound”—is now a retail store.  And the stubborn little building that has hung on longer than nearly all of its neighbors continues to do so.

photographs by the author