The Lost Madison Avenue Baptist Church - 131 Madison Avenue

 

 photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

 

Organized in 1838, in 1849 the Rose Hill Church changed its name to the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church.  Three years later, in 1852, the congregation moved into a newly built brick structure at 154 Lexington Avenue, at the corner of 30th Street.  Its residency would be short-lived.  In 1859, the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church began construction of a new building at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 31st Street.

Architect Henry C. Dudley's Gothic Revival design exhibited influences of the Sicilian Romanesque and Tuscan styles.  The centered entrance sat within a projecting portico below a large rose window.  Two asymmetrical bell towers rose high above the Murray Hill mansions in the neighborhood.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

According to the 1866 Practice Reports, the building "cost, including the lot and an organ...the sum of about one hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars."  The figure would translate to about $4.48 million in 2025.  By May 1860, the congregation moved into the uncompleted structure and changed its name to the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.  On May 19, The New York Times reported, "The Vestry of the Madison-avenue Baptist church (corner of Thirty-first street) will be opened to-morrow at 10 1/2 A.M.; preaching by Rev. Dr. Hague."

The building was dedicated on January 6, 1861.  The organ that was included in Practice Reports figures was built by Henry Urban, one of the most respected organ builders in the country.  On February 13, 1861, The New-York Tribune reported, "A concert will be given this evening in the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, at which the capabilities of the very fine organ of the church will be shown for the first time."

On April 12, 1861, four months after the church was dedicated, the first shot in the Civil War was fired.  The congregation quickly showed its patriotism.  The "ladies of the church" met on April 28 to discuss how they could help the cause.  The New York Times reported, "as a great many persons were making lint [the linen or cotton material used for dressing wounds] and bandages...they [will] confine their efforts to making up flannel garments and wrappers."  And the following week, on May 5, the New-York Tribune reported, "A splendid flag was raised on the tower of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, corner of Thirty-first street and Madison avenue, yesterday afternoon at 6 o'clock, with appropriate ceremonies."

While the wealthy, white congregation fully supported the Union's cause, the members were less comfortable with that cause getting too close to home.  A member named Howell attempted to purchase a pew but was refused.  He sued the church in the fall of 1862.  The New-York Tribune reported on November 22 that the church explained that Howell, "had purposely annoyed the congregation by sending negroes into the pew."  The court sided with the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.

photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The congregation merged with the Oliver Street Baptist Church in 1862.  Included in the negotiations (which apparently the trustees of the Oliver Street Baptist Church did not closely examine) was the transfer of that church's assets to the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.  The amiable alliance fell apart when the former Oliver Street congregation tried to sell $5,000 worth of Poughkeepsie city bonds and discovered they no longer owned them.

A highly visible, 14-year-long court battle resulted.  On February 2, 1873, the New York Herald reported that Judge Sedgwick of the Superior Court had decided in favor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.  The decision did not repair the schism within the congregation, but only worsened it.  The Baptist Encyclopaedia said, 

The old and honored Oliver Street church had united with the Madison Avenue church, but when the courts decided that the Oliver Street church was not legally the owner of the church property, the latter withdrew with Dr. [Joseph F.] Elder, and are now building a church edifice which promises to be in all respects quite equal to the spacious and beautiful house which they left in Madison Avenue.

In 1876, the church was closed "for repairs," as worded by The New York Times.  In fact, the work was more about redecorating.  On December 11, 1877, The New York Times said that the church "was thrown open last evening for the inspection of the public, and was visited by a large number of ladies and gentlemen, all of whom expressed themselves well pleased with the new and tasteful appearance of the interior of the edifice."  The article said that $12,000 was spent in the "redecorating and refitting the church."  It described:

The apex of the chancel arch is painted a torquois [sic] blue, with gilt stars, and the grand arch, over the body of the church, is an azure blue.  All the frescoing is on solid wood, or plaster of Paris, and the gilding of the finest gold leaf.  The organ has been repainted and redecorated, and put in thorough order, under the supervision of Mr. Henry Erbin [sic], its original builder.

Rev. Dr. C. D. W. Bridgman became pastor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in March 1877.  His sermon on February 15, 1891 sparked a firestorm when he included the Bible passage: "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands, to go into hell."  Baptist theology rejected the possibility of Christians' going to hell following Christ's promise of redemption.  Despite having served as "its popular pastor," as described by the New-York Tribune, for 14 years, the newspaper titled an article on April 30, 1891, "Dr. Bridgman Resigns / A Question Of Doctrine The Cause."

photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Bridgman's resignation initiated a list of short-lived pastorships.  In February 1901, his successor, Rev. Dr. H. M. Sanders resigned, saying, "he thought a younger man ought to take his place," reported the New-York Tribune.

He was replaced by Rev. George C. Lorimer, who died in Aix-les Bains on September 8, 1904.  The Rev. Dr. Kerr Boyce Tupper accepted the pastorship on May 22, 1905.  He was replaced by Dr. Charles A. Eaton, who resigned in February 1918 to accept the "leadership of the national service section of the United States Shipping Board."  His politically-charged last sermon here on April 27 condemned Germany and the U.S. President.  A headline in The Sun read, "Dr. Eaton Consigns Germany To Hell," and the article said, "Speaking for the last time at the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, which he is leaving, the pastor accused the President of 'squirting rosewater at the Germans.'"

Eaton was replaced with the Rev. Dr. George Caleb Moor, but his tenure, as well, would be short.  In 1922, a group of members accused him "of immorality" with "an eighteen-year-old girl," according to the New-York Tribune on February 17.  The accusers were expelled, but they took their case to the Baptist Council.  On June 11, the New York Herald reported that they were "vindicated."  The Southern New York Baptist Association called "the situation detrimental to the church," as reported by newspaper.

At the time of the upheaval, the neighborhood around the Madison Avenue Baptist Church had changed after six decades.  Once a refined, residential enclave, it was now a bustling commercial district.  Congregations nation-wide were turning to a new concept: the skyscraper church.  Parishes replaced their churches with office or apartment buildings that incorporated worship space within the lower floors.  

In 1929, the trustees of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church leased its property to the newly formed Madison Avenue-Thirty-first Street Corporation.  The venerable church building was demolished to be replaced with the Jardine, Murdock & Wright-designed, 15-story Roger Williams Hotel, which incorporated the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.

photograph by the author

H. I. Feldman's 1940 139 East 35th Street

 

photo by Lowell Cochrane

On December 19, 1939, The New York Sun titled an article, "Apartments for Church Plot."  The previous year, the Church of the Epiphany, erected in 1856, was demolished.  The article said that the newly formed 139 East Thirty-fifth Street, Inc. had purchased the former church property at the northeast corner of 35th Street and Lexington Avenue as the site of a 12-story apartment building.

Importantly, the Tishman Realty & Construction Company had been hired to erect the structure.  "This will be the first new apartment house operation with which the Tishmans have been identified since 1931," said The New York Sun.  The Tishman concern had been static since the beginnings of the Great Depression.  "It marks the active entry of this organization into the construction field as a building contractor."

The article noted, "H. I. Feldman, the architect, will design the building."  Hyman Isaac Feldman opened his architectural office in 1921.  He would soon become well-known for his Art Deco apartment houses along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and similar buildings in Brooklyn.  Known professionally by his initials, before his death in 1981, Feldman would design more than 2,500 metropolitan area apartment buildings.

The New York Sun reported that the building would contain "156 two and three room suites and will present a number of ingenious features, such as in respect to dressing rooms and alcoves."  A roof garden was available "for the relaxation of the tenants," said the article.  Calling it a "sky garden," an advertisement described the space as being "swept by cool breezes."

Construction was completed in August 1940.  Typical of Feldman's designs, 139 East 35th Street had no setbacks and terminated in a drama-free parapet.  Windows wrapped the chamfered corners of the recessed central section.  Below them, the offset entrance was tucked into a reentrant corner.  Reeded brick piers thrust upward from the second to tenth floors, capped with striking stone palmettes.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

Interestingly, among the initial tenants was Robert Valentine Tishman, of the Tishman Realty & Construction Company.  Born in 1916, he graduated from Cornell University in 1937 and entered his family's business.  It was established in 1898 by his grandfather, Julius Tishman.  On June 12, 1941, The New York Sun reported that he and Phyllis Gordon would be married in the Hotel Lombardy that afternoon.  "After a wedding trip to California, the couple will live at 139 East 35th Street," said the article.

Moving into an apartment in October 1941 were actor Frank O'Connor and his wife, author and screenwriter Ayn Rand.  The couple met on the set of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings and were married on April 15, 1929.  Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1905, Ayn became an American citizen in 1931.

Ayn Rand in 1943.  from the dust jacket of The Fountainhead

Two months after moving in, Rand landed a contract to publish the novel she was working on, The Fountainhead.  It was published in May 1943.  Later that year, Rand returned home from a business lunch and, according to Anne Conover Heller in her Ayn Rand and the World She Made:

When she got back to the apartment, tired and downcast, her husband was waiting in the dimly lit living room, a peculiar look on his face.  "Well, darling," he said, after a dramatic pause, "while you were at lunch you earned fifty thousand dollars."

Frank O'Connor had received the phone call from Warner Bros. informing her they had purchased the screen rights to The Fountainhead.  The couple left 139 East 35th Street in December that year.

photograph by Lowell Cochrane

In the meantime, composer and songwriter Vernon Duke signed a lease on January 5, 1942.  Born into a noble Russian family in 1903 as Vladimir Doukelsky, he was the grandson of Princess Tumanishvili.  He entered the Kiev Conservatory at the age of 11, but his studies were interrupted by the Russian Revolution.  The family escaped, eventually landing in America in 1921.  He was befriended by George Gershwin who urged him to Americanize his name to Vernon Duke.

Vernon Duke, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

While living here, Duke served in the U.S. Coast Guard and toured for the Guard in a show, Tars & Spars.  Among his best known works are Taking a Chance on Love, April in Paris, and Autumn in New York.

Like Duke, other tenants saw military service during World War II.  Among them was Charles G. Moses, who had attended Washington High School and was in the real estate business before being drafted on October 11, 1941.  The 23-year-old's life suddenly and drastically changed.

On September 4, 1943, The New York Sun began an article saying, 

Corporal Charles G. Moses, listed as wounded in action, wrote his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Moses of 139 East 35th street, that in the African and Sicilian fighting he was bombed ninety-seven times.  "The ninety-eighth time," he added, "they got me."

Charles Moses was saved by a fellow New Yorker, Louis Bellows from the Bronx.  He applied tourniquets and sprinkled sulpha powder on his wounds.  Moses wrote, "In the hospital, they took shrapnel out of both arms and pieces of my watch out of my left wrist."  After nine days in the hospital, Moses returned to his unit.

Another tenant who gave up their workaday life to serve was Virginia Sanders, the daughter of Howard S. Sanders.  She had worked for Hardy & Company, but on November 2, 1944, The East Hampton Star reported that she, "has arrived in India to serve the armed forces as an American Red Cross hospital staff aide."

On the afternoon of September 6, 1965, 34-year-old resident Sanford Simon was driving back to Manhattan from Westhampton when he noticed a teenager hitchhiking.  Simon picked up 17-year-old Robert B. Rowa.  At around 4:45, when Simon pulled over at an exit to let Rowa out, the teen pulled out a knife and demanded, "Give me your money."  Simon told him there was $275 in the glove compartment, but pleaded to leave him some money for the tunnel toll.  The Long Island Advance reported, "the youth left him a quarter."  Rowa was arrested two days later and charged with first-degree robbery.

An interesting resident was Edith Ehrman.  Born in 1932, she was the daughter of Frederick L. Ehrman, chairman of the board of Lehman Brothers, Inc.  Never married, Edith was the manager of the foreign-areas materials center of the New York State Department of Education.  She was more known, however, as a collector of Japanese prints.  A founder of the Japan House Gallery, she was also a member of the visiting Committee of the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute and of the Association of Asian Studies.

Quintessentially H. I. Feldman, 139 East 35th Street survives essentially intact, other than replacement windows.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

The William and Caroline M. Sewell House - 320 Lexington Avenue

 

photograph by Ted Leather

The developing Murray Hill district drew millionaires like the Phelps and Dodge families in the 1840s.  By the outbreak of the Civil War, Lexington Avenue between 38th and 39th Streets was lined with the handsome residences of affluent bankers, brokers, attorneys and merchants.  Among them was the Sewell residence at 292 Lexington Avenue (renumbered 320 in 1867).

Faced in sandstone, the four-story-and-basement Italianate residence featured an arched, double-doored entrance above a high stoop.  Its triangular pediment sat upon scrolled brackets.  Almost assuredly, the full-height parlor windows were originally fronted by a cast iron balcony.  Prominent cornices sat atop the architrave frames of the openings.  The fourth floor took the form of a slate-shingled mansard.

William Sewell, Jr.  (original source unknown.)

Born in 1810, William Sewell, Jr. was Chief Engineer of the United States Navy.  He and his wife, the former Caroline Matilda Dunscomb, had three children, Julia Elizabeth, Walter Dunscomb, and Henry.

Sewell's engineering expertise went further than military vessels.  On April 14, 1860, for instance, The New York Times reported on the launching of the Adriatic, "the most comfortable passenger-ship in service."  The article mentioned that it was outfitted with the "fresh water condenser of Mr. Sewell," as well as the "excellent life-preserving pillows of Mr. William Sewell, C.E."  (Two buoyant pillows were connected, "as to be easily slipped on under the arms, and firmly secured.")

The Civil War demanded much of Sewell's talents.  On April 7, 1863, the Harbor Defense Commission met to discuss means of protecting New York Harbor.  The New York Times reported, "Mr. William Sewell submitted a communication and charts explaining a plan for blockading the harbor against the entrance of a hostile fleet."

Before the end of the war, Sewell retired.  He died in the Lexington Avenue house at the age of 55 on May 12, 1865.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 15th.

Caroline Matilda Dunscomb Sewell (original source unknown)

Julia Elizabeth was married in Trinity Chapel to Adam Scott Cameron on June 2, 1874.  The couple moved into the Sewell residence.  They would have two sons, Walter Scott, born in 1875, and Aubrey Sewell, born in 1877.

Adam Cameron was in the "pumps" business.  Also moving into the house around this time was John L. Cameron, a relative, who listed his profession as "treasurer."  Walter D. Sewell became a physician around 1877.

On October 15, 1877, one month before Aubrey Sewell Cameron was born, Adam Scott Cameron died at the age of 37.  His funeral was not held in the house, as might have been expected, but at Trinity Chapel, where he and Julia had been married just three years earlier.

Caroline and Julia would appear in the society columns for years.  On January 8, 1881, for instance, The Daily Graphic announced, "Mrs. Sewall [sic] and Mrs. Cameron, of No. 320 Lexington avenue, leave shortly for Aiken," and on March 25, 1888, The World reported, "Mrs. Cameron, No. 320 Lexington avenue, gave a luncheon on Tuesday morning."

In July 1888, Caroline hired the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine to enlarge the house with a one-story rear extension.  

Julia Elizabeth Sewell Cameron.  (original source unknown)

The women's entertaining was vividly described by The New York Times on March 17, 1892, which wrote:

The luncheon table around which Mrs. Cameron of 320 Lexington Avenue had twelve guests yesterday at 1 o'clock was a "dream in pink and lavender."  A great mound of Catharine Mermet roses and lilacs from the greenhouses of Siebrecht & Wadley occupied the centre of the table, and at each lady's right was an imported basket of the most delicate china with raised hand-painted forget-me-nots and roses upon them.  To these were tied bunches of Catharine Mermet roses with pink ribbons.

Dr. William Dunscomb Sewell still lived with his mother and sister.  He operated his private practice from the house, most likely in the basement level.

Caroline Matilda Sewell died of pneumonia on December 4, 1896 at the age of 72.  Julia inherited the Lexington Avenue house.  At the turn of the century, she leased it to William Watson Shippen, Jr. and his wife, the former Alice Gerald Wood.  

Born in 1858, Shippen was secretary-treasurer of the Hackensack Water Company, an engineer of the Lackawanna Railroad, and a director of the First National Bank of Hoboken.  He and Alice were married in 1886 and had a son, Edward, who was born the next year.

Living with the couple were William's unmarried sisters, Ettie, Georgia, Sofie Morton, and Caroline.  Like the women in the house before them, they routinely appeared in the society columns.  On January 18, 1902, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. W. W. Shippen and the Misses Shippen, 320 Lexington Avenue, received yesterday."

In the summer of 1907, the Shippens embarked on a thorough housecleaning.  On June 6, the "big wagon of the Vacuum Cleaning Company" arrived and parked in front of the house.  The Evening World explained,

The cleanser on wheels had been standing in front of No. 320 Lexington avenue, while its apparatus, carried into the house by means of air pipes and operated by the electric plant in the wagon, was furbishing walls and floor coverings.

When the cleaners were done, the wagon, "which runs by its own power," according to The Evening World, made a U-turn on the avenue to leave.  "At that instant a [street] car came rushing down the hill," said the article.  It struck the wagon "with terrific force."  The three-man crew of the cleaning company was severely injured, and two of them later died.

The Shippen family remained here until March 1916, when Julie Cameron leased it to James Geraghty.  By then, the stretch of Lexington Avenue had changed from an upscale residential neighborhood to one of shops, apartments and commercial buildings.  At the end of World War I, the former Sewell house was operated as rented rooms.

Living here in 1934 was 23-year-old waiter Charles E. Folsom, the son of a Boston newspaper editor.  On January 15 that year, he pleaded guilty for the murder of Abraham Borsun.  Folsom and another striking union worker, George Johnson, shot Borsun during labor tensions.  According to Folsom, they only intended to frighten Borsun by shooting at him.  Instead, they killed him.  The Ossining, New York Citizen Sentinel reported, "Folsom faces a sentence of from 20 years to life imprisonment at Sing Sing."

A renovation completed in 1939 resulted in apartments and furnished rooms throughout the building.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to the former English basement level.

The original entrance was converted to French windows.  A "Rooms to Let" sign hangs above the doorway.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in 1982 was Kuno Laren, the chairman of the board of the Sentry Armored Car Courier Company.  In June that year, he and two other officials stole $100,000 from a $500,000 revolving fund the firm maintained for one of its customers.   A month before Laren and his co-workers were arrested on January 12, 1983 for the crime, one of the company's armored cars was robbed of $11 million.  In arresting the trio, District Attorney Mario M. Merolo said they "could not be ruled out or excluded as suspects" in the December theft.

The building was remodeled again in 1988.  In the renovation, the Italianate frame was removed from the former doorway.  Despite the loss, the removal of the stoop and a restaurant in the basement level, the Sewell house retains much of its domestic appearance.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post

Buchman & Kahn's 1926 Hoffmann Building - 79 Madison Avenue

In 1914, millionaire real estate operator Robert W. Goelet announced that he would erect a "16-story brick fireproof store and loft building" on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 28th Street.  Architects Warren & Wetmore projected the cost of the project at $350,000.  The firm had recently designed the new Grand Central Terminal, which was completed the previous year.

For some reason, however, the project did not go forward.  Instead, eleven years later, the 79 Madison Ave. Corp., headed by Harris H. Uris, acquired the property and hired Buchman & Kahn to design an office and loft building on the parcel.  On June 6, 1925, the New York Evening Post reported that the architects, "have placed the estimated cost at $3,500,000 for land and building."  The figure would translate to about $60.8 million in 2025.  The article noted, "The building is expected to be ready for occupancy about February 1, 1926."

Buchman & Kahn designed the 16-story building in the Renaissance Revival style.  The three-story base was faced in stone.  The first and second floors were designed as a segmental arcade, the spandrels of which were filled with deep red, veined stone.  The reeded pilasters of the third floor were decorated with carved bands.  They upheld a remarkable intermediate cornice that smacked of Egyptian lotus capitals.  It was adorned with full relief, carved rosettes.

Above the 12th floor--decorated with stone and terra cotta panels--were two setbacks, at the 13th and the 14th through 16th floors.

photograph by Sigurd Fischer from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The New York Evening Post remarked, "The architects have introduced every detail of modern business building design in the layout and plan, including ceiling heights of unusual liberality, [and] four freight and four passenger elevators."  The most noticeable ceiling height of "unusual liberality" was the ground floor, which was nearly double height.  It was leased to the Equitable Trust Company in January 1926.

The Hoffmann Building attracted a variety of tenants.  Initial lessees were apparel-related firms like The Rubber Reducing Corset Co. and Barton's Bias Narrow Fabric Co.  Publisher G. K. Hanchett was also an initial tenant.  The firm published periodicals like Good Hardware and Progressive Grocer.  Other early tenants were accountant Leonard Levine; the French-based fabric firm of Seydoux & Michau; and Anderson, Meyer & Co., Inc., dealers of antimony.  (Antimony is a gray metal, used in alloys.)

The Corset and Underwear Review, April, 1926 (copyright expired)

G. K. Hanchett remained in the building well into the Depression years.  Another publisher, Frederick Warne & Co., which dealt in children's books, leased space in 1944.

The second half of the century saw the tenant list of 79 Madison Avenue filling with focus-related groups.  The City Youth Board was here in the late 1950s through mid-1960s.  At the same time, the Committee for the Monroe Doctrine and the Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations were here.  The 1970s and 1980s saw the Council for Agencies Servicing the Blind, the National Association of Social Workers, and the New York Coalition for Safety Belt Use leasing space.

Image by Wurts Bros., 1936, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the meantime, Dodd, Mead & Co. signed a lease for the eighth floor in September 1966.  The New York Times reported that the book publisher, "will use the space for new editorial, executive and business offices beginning in February."  The firm would remain for decades.

Occupying space at the time was the public relations firm Marvin Liebman Associates.  During the 1964 Presidential campaign, the firm did the public relations work for the Barry Goldwater organization.  

Two interesting tenants here as early as the 1980s were Sparkman and Stephens, Inc. and the German Wine Information Bureau.  Sparkman and Stephens, Inc. offered an upscale service--chartering more than 350 yachts including captain and crew.  According to Joanne A. Fishman, writing in The New York Times on May 30, 1982, the winter charters were mostly in the Caribbean.  In the summer months, however, they "run mostly in New England, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, off Norway, Sweden and Denmark and the English Coast."

Buchmand & Kahn placed intricate sunflower screens above the entrance doors. photograph by Sigurd Fischer from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As its name implied, the German Wine Information Bureau disseminated the nuances of German wines.  In November 1985, New Yorkers who were seriously interested in learning about them could enroll in the German Wine Academy here.  Its five-month seminars took the enrollees to the vineyards and wineries of the German wine regions.  The German Wine Information Bureau operated here at least through 1988.

F. Schumacher & Co. became an important tenant beginning in the late 1980s.  Established in 1889, the privately held textile firm designs and manufactures wall coverings, drapery fabrics, and other interior design elements.  When the interior of Radio City Music Hall was restored, F. Schumacher & Co. reproduced the 1931 original carpets and wall coverings.

On June 30, 1995, Newsday reported that F. Schumacher & Co. "is expanding at 79 Madison Ave. by leasing an addition 16,000 square feet to house office and showroom space."

Modernization of vintage buildings most often attack the lower floors, obliterating the original designs as mismatched storefronts are installed.  But 79 Madison Avenue happily escaped that fate.  Although the magnificent entrances have been streamlined and their ornate screens scrapped, overall Buchman & Kahn's 1926 structure survives intact.

photographs by the author

The 1931 Madison Ave. Baptist Church / Roger Williams Hotel - 129-131 Madison Avenue

 

In the early 1920s, a new concept began sweeping metropolitan areas--the "skyscraper church."  Congregations from coast to coast were demolishing their old structures and erecting apartment or office buildings that incorporated a ground floor church space.  In theory, the congregation would reap tremendous income from the rental properties.  It was a notion that would catch the attention of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 31st Street.

The 1855 Madison Avenue Baptist Church, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Organized in 1838 as the Rose Hill Church, in 1849 it changed its name to the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church.  Three years later it moved into a red brick structure at 154 Lexington Avenue.  Only six years later, in 1858, the congregation relocated into a Romanesque Revival-style structure at Madison Avenue and 31st Street.  The church was renamed the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.  

In 1929, with the Great Depression ravaging the country, the congregation faced a decision.  The trustees leased its property to the newly formed Madison Avenue-Thirty-first Street Corporation.  It demolished the vintage church and hired architects Jardine, Murdock & Wright to design a 15-story residential hotel on the site.  A restriction in the deed demanded that the new building would include a sanctuary for the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.  Rev. John Sanders Bone later explained it was the only way "to maintain itself in an area where it could have survived because of the terrific costs, and to provide a 'witness' in the business community in the heart of the city."

Perhaps as a nod to the former church structure, Jardine, Murdock & Wright designed the hotel-church in a 1930s take on Romanesque.  The sanctuary was located at the southern part of the property, with a three-story limestone face and an impressive arched entrance.  The stained glass windows from the demolished church, executed by Franz Xavier Zettler sometime after 1870, were salvaged and installed into the new sanctuary.

On October 12, 1931, The New York Times reported, "The new Madison Avenue Baptist Church, built into the lower floors of the Roger Williams apartment hotel...was formally opened yesterday morning."  The hotel was named for Roger Williams, who founded the First Baptist Church in America in 1638.

The entrance to the Roger Williams Hotel was on East 31st Street.  Its apartments would be called "studios," today.  An advertisement in the Columbia Spectator on May 12, 1932 described, "one room apartments, attractively furnished" with "kitchenette."  Rents were "$40 per month and up," or about $892 in 2025 terms.

Tenants saw a rent hike the following year.  An ad in The New York Sun in 1933 was titled, "You Get All This for $50," and touted, "attractive living room, tile bath, cooking facilities with gas without charge, also electric connections.  Electric refrigeration.  Ample closet space.  Maid service optional."

Despite their relatively small accommodations, the apartments filled with middle-class professionals, like literary agent Minnie Hoover Linton, who moved in on October 28, 1933 with her cat.  Linton, who according to The New York Times, was "distantly related to former President Hoover," was the sister of J. Edgar Hoover.  After having worked as an editor at McGraw-Hill Publishing Company for ten years, in 1929 she co-founded her agency with Nell Martin.

Also an author, Minnie Linton had completed six chapters of her current novel, The Rooming House, when she moved in.  

The 59-year-old was almost totally deaf, a result of an explosion in The Los Angeles Times building where she had worked as a proof-reader.  (Twenty-one other workers were killed.)  Because of her condition, she carried an ear trumpet.

The evening after moving into the Roger Williams, Minnie attempted to visit Nell Martin, but she was out.  She had almost made it back home at 10:00 when she was struck and killed at the corner of Madison Avenue and 31st Street.   

Novelist Henry Miller and writer Anaïs Nin moved into the Roger Williams Hotel in November 1934, according to Robert Ferguson's Henry Miller, A Life.   Ferguson explains, "The main achievement of his stay at the Roger Williams Apartments...was to finish Black Spring, the collection of autobiographical pieces that would eventually become his second published work."

Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin (original source unknown)

Sylvia Morris lived here in 1935 when she suffered embarrassing, nationwide press coverage.  Her repeated visits to Dr. Winfield Scott Pugh raised the suspicions of Pugh's wife, Irma Mary.  One afternoon she was at her husband's office when Sylvia Morris was taken into the examination room.  She later told a judge that there was "complete silence" in the room.  "When other patients were there I always heard commotion."  

Irma Mary Pugh went outside, obtained a stepladder, and peered into her husband's examination room.  In court on January 23, 1936, she pointed to Sylvia Morris and testified, "I saw that woman laying nude on the operating table.  My husband was in his undershirt," as reported in The Decatur Daily Review.

Amelia Sackett moved to New York from Philadelphia after being separated from her lithographer husband, Harry A. Sackett.  She found a job in a doctor's office in Brooklyn and  signed a lease for an apartment on the seventh floor with a friend here in 1939.  Her attempt to move on from her divorce was not successful and she suffered depression.  On November 23, 1939, Amelia rushed toward the open apartment window.  Her roommate grasped her clothing, but the fabric tore and the 66-year-old plunged to her death.

Living here in the post-World War II years was Florence Lundborg.  Born in 1870 in San Francisco, she studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and in Europe.  An established illustrator and muralist, among her works were murals for the Wadleigh High School in Manhattan and the Curtis High School on Staten Island.  Lundborg died during her sleep in her apartment here on January 18, 1949 at the age of 78.

Florence Lundborg from the collection of the National Archives and Records Administration.

By the third quarter of the century, the Roger Williams (which now accepted only transient guests) had declined.  The management began renovations in 1970, and on October 23, New York Magazine wrote, 

 

It is small and not very attractive--but adequate.  The tiny lobby and many of the rooms are now being redecorated, and the dingy hallways do lead to some pleasant rooms.  Those on the lower floors had been remodeled with wood paneling and all-new bathrooms.  The idea behind the renovation is to achieve the modern, efficient look of a motel room.  That they succeed may be either a plus or a minus in your book.

 

At the time of the article, an unrenovated single room ranged from $14.50 to $19.50 per night.  A remodeled room began at $16.50 (about $129 today).

In 1985, the Red Cross took over three floors of the Roger Williams as an "emergency family center" that could accommodate 30 homeless families, according to The New York Times on June 23.  The Red Cross facility remained at least through 1987.

On December 18, 1992, The New York Times published an article on Manhattan hotels that cost $150 or less per night.  Calling the Roger Williams Hotel a "simple, tidy establishment," it said, "The furnishings are just a step up from college dormitories, but the beds are decent and the prices remarkable."  A room cost $55 per night.

In 1995, the Madison Avenue Baptist Church leased the hotel to Bernard Goldberg, principal of the Gotham Hospitality Group.  Rev. Michael B. Easterling, the church's pastor, explained that of the eight operators who bid on the lease, "the Gotham Group has proposed the strongest renovation program."  The following year, the new proprietors initiated a year-long renovation.

Originally retaining the Hotel Roger Williams name, the renovated building was described in November 2001 by The New York Times saying, "Serene and spare, the 187-room hotel deftly blends European and Asian influences; shoji screens on the windows, Belgian linens on the beds."  The interior design by Rafael Viñoly included "a space for free chamber music performances."

In the renovation, the entrance to the hotel was moved from 31st Street to Madison Avenue.  Recently, the name was changed to Hotel AKA NoMad.

photographs by the author

The 1902 Warrington Hotel - 161 Madison Avenue

 

At the turn of the last century, the era of refined mansions and stately carriages along the Madison Avenue block between 32nd and 33rd Streets had ended.  While the Murray Hill side streets retained their quiet, residential personality, the avenue had been invaded by commerce.

In 1902, developer Frank P. Bloodgood erected a residential hotel on the site of 161 and 163 Madison Avenue.  Designed by Israels & Harder, the 11-story structure cost $300,000 to build, or about $11 million in 2025 terms.  It was clad in red brick and trimmed in terra cotta and limestone above a rusticated stone base.

There were two retail spaces on the ground floor.  Between them was the residential entrance, its elaborate cornice supported by engaged Scamozzi columns.  The Beaux Arts design of the upper floors featured a full-width balcony at the fourth floor.  Supported by oversized stone brackets, it was protected by an ornate iron railing.  Between the brackets were French-style bay windows at the third floor.  Elaborate, foliate terra cotta tiles framed the fourth to eleventh floors, and massive scrolled brackets with wreaths sat at either end of the cornice.

In this fuzzy photo from 1941, the original cornice and over-blown end brackets can be seen.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Occupants of residential hotels signed leases, as in an apartment building.  But the apartments did not have kitchens.  Instead, the residents of the Warrington took meals in the ground floor restaurant, included in the rent.  An advertisement offered, "unfurnished apartments from 2 to 6 rooms and baths; maids' rooms."

Among the first to move in were the Cameron sisters, whose decision to move in highlighted the change in the neighborhood.  On March 4, 1904, the New-York Tribune reported,

Miss Margaret, Miss Catherine and Miss Isabel Cameron, daughters of the late Sir Roderick Cameron, have given up their house at Madison-ave. and Thirty-fourth-st., and have taken an apartment at No. 161 Madison-ave., which they will occupy until they open Clifton Berley, their country place at Rosebank, Staten Island, for the summer.

The names of the affluent residents of the Warrington appeared in the newspapers mostly for engagements, debutante receptions, and deaths.  Elizabeth Flournoy Mariani's taking an apartment in April 1907, however, raised intrigue.

The daughter of the Mayor of Cleveland, Tom Loftin Johnson, Elizabeth (known as Bessie) married Frederico Mariani, "the dashing young Italian," as described by The Evening World, on March 23.  An aspiring writer, The Evening World said, "She was working on a serious drama when she met Sig. Mariani at Monte Carlo."  Calling him, "very good looking and splendidly educated, " the article said, "After they met at Monte Carlo they were much in each other's company at various Continental capitals, and when Miss Johnson returned to her Cleveland home, Mariani soon followed to resume his wooing in America."

Elizabeth "Bessie" Flournoy Johnson Mariani.  (original source unknown)

The couple was married in the Johnsons' "Cleveland mansion with considerable ceremony."  Their first stop on what was to be "an extended honeymoon" was New York City.  But on May 10, The Evening World reported that Bessie, "has been spending two weeks alone at the Hotel Warrington," while her husband of a month, "has been in the seclusion of his former bachelor quarters at Stratford House."  The newlyweds were unable to reconcile.  Elizabeth never remarried and went on to a successful career on the stage.

Bessie's choice, given her later career, was coincidental.  Living among the affluent families here were several theatrical figures.  Among them in 1911 was actor Jameson Lee Finney, who was appearing in The Deep Purple at the time.  In June, the bachelor fell ill and a good friend, Emily D. Jex visited him and "helped to nurse him," according to the New-York Tribune.  The article said Emily was "a wealthy young woman who, with her mother, Mrs. Josiah P. Jex, and her sister, Mrs. Gregory Sutton, lives at the Hotel Plaza during the winter months of each year."

The actor and Emily Jex had known one another for about five years, and he "was often seen with her at the Plaza," said the New-York Tribune.  In July, when he was well enough, Finney went abroad, and he met Emily and her mother and sister there.  

Jameson Lee Finney in costume.  (original source unknown)

Finney remained in London at the Hotel Carlton while the Jex women went "for a tour of the Continent."  On August 10, 1911, The New York Times titled an article, "J. L. Finney, Actor, Dies In London Fire."  A blaze in the Hotel Carlton broke out in the kitchens and rapidly spread upward.  Finney's body was discovered in the bathroom of his suite, "so charred to be beyond recognition," said the article.  A month later, on September 16, 1911, New Yorkers received a shock when the New-York Tribune reported that Finney, "was married less than a month before his death to Miss Emily D. Jex."  The couple had kept their marriage secret.

Another resident with theatrical ties was George Hammond McLean.  Although a well-to-do insurance man (he was vice-president of the Citizens' Fire Insurance Company when he retired in 1903), McLean had several friends in London in the theater.  In 1874, according to the New-York Tribune, he "brought the idea of a Lambs' club from London."  With four friends, they founded the Lambs in New York.

The affluence of the Warrington residents was evidenced by a break-in in the apartment of Samuel Chittenden in 1912.  The family returned on November 2 to discover that $2,000 in jewelry was missing.  The New-York Tribune reported, "The stolen jewels, which were heirlooms, have more than their money value for Mr. Chittenden."  (Nevertheless, their value would translate to about $64,800 today.)  Suspiciously, the elevator man, Charles H. Rosenthal, "disappeared the same day," reported the article.

Two months later, on January 2, 1913, Charles H. Rosenthal, alias Rogers, was arrested in Los Angeles.  Three pieces of the stolen jewelry was found on Rosenthal at the time of his arrest.  Three years earlier, Rosenthal had been arrested in Chicago "for the theft of jewels valued at $30,000 from Helen Dwelle Jenkins," according to the New-York Tribune.

Living here in 1917 were Mary Newman Kennedy and her daughter, Marion.  Mary was the widow of actor H. Custer Kennedy who died in 1914.  Mary issued invitations to Marion's wedding to William Gage Brady, Jr. in October 1917.  The couple was married in St. Bartholomew's Church (where the Vanderbilt family worshiped) on November 10.

Resident Count Edward Zichy upset the wedding plans of young Charlotte Gardiner Demarest and millionaire Max Bernheimer on May 9, 1922.  That day, "a few hours" before the wedding, according to The Evening World, Count Zichy whisked the bride-to-be away and they married at City Hall.   The next day, Warren G. Demarest, Charlotte's father, told reporters, "This whole affair is a great surprise and shock to me."  Although he wanted only his daughter's happiness, he said, "What I most regret is the publicity that has come of it...She is nothing but a child."

On May 18, just a week after the wedding, the Count and Countess returned to the Warrington after an evening out.  "They had dismissed the cab when out of the early morning drizzle there appeared four men who had kept a vigil in the shelter of nearby doorways for more than three hours," reported the New York Herald.  The surprised count was served with a summons in a suit for $1,000 damages for a taxicab and injuries to the cabbie in an earlier collision.  Count Zichy countersued for $1,000 damages to his Simplex speedster.

In September 1924, William C. Orr, Jr. signed a lease for the northerly store for his restaurant.  The other store was home to the Behr, Inc. florist.

A restaurant would occupy the northern store for decades.  It was possibly Orr who severely altered the storefront.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the third quarter of the century, the Warrington Hotel, once home to affluent socialites, was operated as a single-room occupancy hotel.  With the change came a series of violent incidents and tragedies.

Among the tenants in the summer of 1970 was 53-year-old Amelia Muhlin.  On July 19 that year, she entered the 14th Street station of the Lexington IRT subway.  As the train entered the station, she threw herself onto the tracks and was killed instantly.

At 4:28 on the morning of December 21, 1971, a fire broke out.  The New York Times reported, "Many elderly people reside at the hotel."  Before the blaze was extinguished, Joseph Blair and his wife, Nancy, who were 57 and 56 years old respectively, were killed.

Saraj Bardharahedya worked here as a maid at the time.  She arrived for work at 9:00 a.m. on December 30, 1972.  Later, complaints were received at the desk that their rooms were not made up.  Neither Saraj nor the laundry basket that she wheeled from room to room could be found.

The New York Times reported, "The police searched for four hours most of the 150 rooms in the old 11-story building."  At one point, they knocked on room 605 and the occupant said he had not seen the maid.  He also refused to divulge his name.

In the afternoon, police retraced their search.  This time no one answered to the knock on room 605.  "As they opened the door they saw the maid's body in the laundry basket," reported The New York Times.  "It had been covered with sheets."

Three hours later, around 8:00 that night, the occupant, James Mitchell, returned.  The 25-year-old who was from Philadelphia, was arrested on charges of homicide and possession of cocaine.

A 13-year-old girl and two 15-year-old friends arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on September 29, 1977 after running away from their homes in Baltimore.  Outside the terminal, they were approached by a man, later identified as Homer Bryant, who offered to find them work.  He brought them to his room in the Warrington Hotel.

There he proposed that they work for him as prostitutes, "promising them large amounts of money and protection," reported The New York Times on November 2.  The two older girls agreed, but the 13-year-old refused.  Bryant sent the other two into an adjoining room, then beat and raped her.

The following day, when Bryant left with the two girls, "to deliver them to a pimp," the 13-year-old escaped.  The only place she knew in Manhattan was the bus terminal.  That afternoon, Port Authority police found her crying on a bench.  Bryant was arrested at the Warrington Hotel "on charges of rape, assault, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a minor."  The girl was reunited with her parents.  At the time, the other teens were still missing.

The Warrington Hotel was closed in 1983 for a renovation.  On September 30, The New York Times reported it would be reopened, "But instead of hotel rooms, behind the building's turn-of-the-century facade will be medical offices."

The $12 million gut renovation by developer McFarlane Company resulted in 29 medical spaces.  The ground floor was entirely remodeled, erasing any surviving elements of Israels & Harder's 1902 details.

photographs by the author